Every year that we celebrate what God has done over the last now 26 years, I'm incredibly humbled at what God has done. And Jane and I even talked about it this week leading up into this anniversary, just, it's incredibly humbling to be a part of what God has done because it really is not about any other name other than the name of Jesus. Jesus is the Lord of the city. The city will never be ours, it will always be His. It's always His purpose, but what an incredible privilege it is for us to be a part of it. And it's both humbling and I was trying to think about the scale of 26 years. It's like 26 years. And then this morning it hit me as I was watching the video announcement that all of the staff that were on our video weren't even born when we launched Radiant Church in 1996. So I'm like, yeah, you don't remember any of that. So, and that's a testimony by my old hairstyles, the fact that I had no facial hair and that we lived out of a trailer, a little red trailer that we set up, but God has been so good to us. And this morning, I wanna bring a message to you that I felt the Lord gave me for this anniversary, for us, not just for today, but actually for us as a people moving forward. A lot of times on vision weekend, I'll come with bullet point goals and very specific things like, this is what we're going into, but this particular message really has to do with the heart and soul of who we are as a people. I've entitled it, A People in Pursuit. And I wanna read actually the opening paragraph because I wrote it and I wanted to be very precise about how I framed this message. So I wrote this, for 26 years, Radiant Church has existed for one purpose and one action, pursuit. When we were only a dream scribbled on a yellow legal pad and then a small congregation meeting in a rented facility, the trajectory of our vision was the same as it is now that we are one church of thousands of people now, meeting in three locations as of today and a family of churches scattered across dozens of states and a few nations, but we are still a people in pursuit. We are not a people of inaction or of the status quo. We set our hearts upon making a difference in those early days and from that time, all of our goals, numbers, budgets, buildings, campaigns, prayers, ministry, statistics, wins, losses and purposes have existed as a constellation of stars pointing us ever back to our one true North, Jesus Christ and his glory above all things. Today, I want to remind us and orient us once again forward facing towards the future, not with mere bullet point goals that we may or may not achieve or check some boxes to feel as though we are making progress. Goals have their place and I've said many of them but today I want instead to call us again to the starting line and exhort us to take our marks and to get set and to go in pursuit of these guiding pursuits and then once again commit ourselves corporately and individually to them as our primary purpose. This is what it means to be a people in pursuit. When you look at our world today and you look at the eight billion people that are on this planet and you were to answer the question, what is the greatest currency and the standard of wealth right now at this particular moment on the planet? There's one word and it may not be the word that you're thinking of. Some might say, well, it's the US dollar. Some might say gold. Some might say silver. Some might even say time. All of those are great answers but the true currency of the hour in which we live in is attention. It's what everybody's fighting for, attention. It's what all the money is spent for, attention. It's what all the social media platforms. It's what the 24 hour news cycle. It's what all of the different subscriptions are focused upon. It's about what every government and every council and every confederation is shaped around. It's attention. Do we have your attention?  Has been and forever will be the eternally worthy Lamb of God who was slain, resurrected, is seated and enthroned. He's worshiped and he's praised by saints and angels and he is the soon incoming King. I don't want us to be a people who put our attention on him on that day when he cracks the eastern sky.  And because of that I want to call us today as a solemn call to be people in pursuit of these four primary pursuits. These four primary attentions that we give our lives to so that we do not become distracted. That's the enemy of attention is distraction. How many know that? It's easy in our world to get distracted. How many of you have ever started out doing one thing and about two hours later figured out that your two steps removed from what you started doing. Anybody done that?  So you wouldn't found your set of golf clubs and you signed up for a tea time and then you showed up at the golf course and realized that you left your wallet at home. And you know, you're just like, how did I get here? I started to clean the closet. It's distraction. How do we fight against the pull, the gravitational pull of distraction? We have to align our hearts. We have to make decisions. We have to give a thousand no's to a whole lot of other things so that we can give our one yes to that which matters most. And so this morning I wanna lay before you four primary pursuits, the presence of God, the transformation of lives, the flourishing of our city and the inheritance from the nations. These are the four pursuits of radiant church.  Today I call this individually to grab a hold of these pursuits and realize these are the things, these are the pursuits that will forever matter.  I wanna live my life so that at the end of it, everything I've been given my life to has not evaporated, but it's gone forward into eternity. And will forever resonate as glory and honor and praise to the one who gave his life for me. So this morning let me talk about these four pursuits. Number one is the presence of God and I've written a statement for each of these. Number one, we will pursue the presence of God with reckless abandon. We will pursue the presence of God with reckless abandon. In Psalm chapter 132, the writer of the Psalm is looking back on the life of King David and he says to the Lord, "'Remember, O Lord, in David's favor.' All the hardships that he endured, if you've ever read through the story of David, you recognize David went through some hard, challenging circumstances and difficulties. He did not live an easy life. He lived most of his life actually on the run. But he wasn't on the run from enemies as much as he was on the run towards the presence of God. And it goes on and it says, he swore to the Lord, here's the vow that David made. And he vowed to the mighty one of Jacob, I will not enter my house or get into my bed. I will not give sleep to my eyes or slumber to my eyelids until I find a place for the Lord. A dwelling place for the mighty one of Jacob. I love this, I mean, this is the vow that David made. David, this king who was a shepherd that God selected when nobody else would have selected him and made him king. David lived his whole life saying this, God, I don't want you to be a commodity. I want you to be the center. Everybody else viewed God as useful. Hey, let's pull the ark out and bring him when we need him, when we're going into battle against our enemies. Let's pull God out of storage and bring him out because we need him. Hey, let's put God in a religious center about 20 miles outside of our real lives and we'll go and visit him every once in a while. Now, when David finally becomes the king over all of Israel and the ark has been relegated to a man named Obed Edom's house on the outskirts of Israel, David's first order of businesses, he says, let's go get the presence of God. Let's go get the ark. And so he led a procession, a whole group of people to Obed Edom's house. And he said, we're here for the presence because that's where God dwelt between the cherubim on the ark of the covenant, the box that was covered in gold that held the 10 commandments, the rod of Aaron that had butted that speak of authority and then a jar of the manna that God had provided. It was the testimony of God's faithfulness and his goodness that was then overshadowed by God's manifest tangible physical presence on the earth. It was God's address on the earth. And everybody honored the ark, but nobody bothered to go get the ark. But I think what somebody does when they come into power and the very first things that they do when a president becomes a president, he talks about his first hundred days. Why? Because that's his priorities. When David becomes king, he says, we're going to Obed Edom's house. We're getting the presence and we're bringing it back into the center of Jewish life. So the first time he goes, it doesn't go well because he did it wrong. How many know it would be terrible to be the guy who got bad instructions? Uzzah reaches out to steady the ark and the Lord struck him and he died because he didn't do it the right way. God's very particular about how he will be worshiped. God will not be handled. He will be honored. But then David comes back a second times and he says, we're going to do this. And he brings the ark and instead of making a left turn at the intersection to take the ark back to the Tabernacle of Moses, which is in the city of Gibeon. Instead, when he gets to the intersection, David makes a sharp right and he heads straight into the city of Jerusalem. That's not where the ark goes. The ark's supposed to be in Moses' Tabernacle. That's where the priests are. That's where the three compartments are. That's what God actually prescribed in the book of Exodus. But David gets to the intersection in which he can go left or he can go right. He can go left and he can set it all back up in a religious structure and let the priests handle it and go visit God occasionally. But David actually takes a right turn and he brings it into Jerusalem. And he doesn't allow the priests to go out in front as the worshipers. He puts on the ephah that a priest wears and he becomes the chief worship leader. And when he gets to where his palace is in Zion, on Mount Zion, he has a tent erected and he says, put God there right next to his house. And he did that for two reasons. Number one is he wanted to be close to God himself. Imagine a king who every morning for his devotions comes out and goes under the tent and stands before the presence of God. And the second reason he did it is so that everyone in Jerusalem, the capital city of Israel would see that the presence of God is what we build around. We don't build around programs. We don't build around kings. We don't build around monuments. We don't build around buildings. We build around the presence of God. And it all started before it was ever a pursuit to go get the presence at Obed Edom's house. It began with a pursuit and a vow that David had made in his own heart. I will not give rest to my eyes. I won't crawl in bed until I have found a resting place for the Lord. Why did David make that vow? Because he valued God's presence above all things and he knew that with God's presence at the center, it changes everything. Can I just tell you today, nothing has changed. We need the presence of God. You need the presence of God. You might say, well, God's everywhere all at the same time. Yeah, God is omnipresent, but there's a distinction in the presence of God in heaven. There's a distinction between that and the omnipresence of God that is invisible and holding all things in the universe together. And then what the Bible describes as his manifest presence, in other words, him making himself known and the breaking in of his kingdom in response to the building blocks being set in place by the people of God, creating a spiritual habitation for his dwelling place. And those building blocks are prayer and worship. It's prayer and worship. When you pray, God comes. Can anybody testify to that that when you pray, God answers? And he doesn't answer from Pluto. He's not out by the Hubble telescope out in some parallel universe. No, when you pray, God draws near. Jesus said in Matthew 6 that the Father is in the secret place, which means he's here, he's near. And when you worship, God comes. The Bible says that we, by our praise and by our worship, Psalm 22 says that God is actually enthroned. That's the focal point of what worship is. You know, we live in a culture, a consumeristic American culture that we have become convinced that everything's about us and our preference. Well, I don't like worship. Worship really didn't impact me this week. I don't like all those songs. Why can't we just sing songs that I like? And we all have preferences. I like songs that nobody else likes and younger generations have their songs and older generations have their songs. And there's, I love the artistic and the variety. I love the hymns. I love the modern songs. I love the electric sounds. I like old 80s rock and roll worship. That actually sounds like if Aerosmith got saved, I like that. But at the end of the day, we can have our preferences, but we have to realize that worship is not about us. It's about him. And the worship he's looking for is not style-driven. It's heart-driven. It's possible for us to say the right words and our hearts be far from him. But there is a promise, church, that if we will put the building blocks in our own lives and together as a church of prayer and worship, of being people of prayer, of being people of praise, of being people of adoration, of giving our attention to the one who is seated on the throne. If we'll do that, God says I will come. And let me tell you something. When Jesus walks in a room, everything changes. We've had people healed physically in their bodies without anybody praying for them, just standing in a room filled with the presence of God. We've had God soften people's hearts, download wisdom, restore marriages, impact children in environments where there is prayer and where there is worship. In the very beginning in 1996, when we were not even a church yet in the summer and I was driving in my car, the Lord encountered me in a very powerful way. And he told this 25-year-old endeavoring pastor, if you will build a praying and a worshiping church, you will strengthen the body of Christ and you will reach the nations of the world. That's one of the reasons why we put such focus on it. Listen, we are never gonna be a church that just sings the songs, takes polls, ask everybody what they want. We're not here to do a light show. This is not about entertainment. This is about enthroning the one who is already enthroned into heavens and seeing it established in the earth.  We are going to be a people of praise and we're gonna be a people of prayer. It's never gonna change. And so if you're waiting for me to break dance or do something like that, it's never gonna happen. But if you're drawing near with the heart that says, God, we're desperate for you, come. I believe we're in the right place. See, Exodus 33, Moses said something that was powerful. God had brought Israel up to the edge of the promised land and they were about to go in, but their hearts had become heart towards the Lord. And the Lord said to Moses and to the children of Israel, I'm gonna keep my promise. My promise is this. I said to you that I will bring you into the promised land and I'm gonna give you the land that you did in the homes that you did not build and the vineyards that you did not plant, I'm gonna do that. But the Lord says the people have rejected me.  But I'm not going with you. This is what he says to Moses.  And Moses' response to God is so convicting. He says to God, if your presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else distinguishes us and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth? It's your presence. So literally Moses said to God, I would rather stay in the wilderness without your promises than go into the promised land without you. That's what it means to be a people in pursuit of his presence. Not that we can take it or leave it, but we recognize that we need the presence of God. I'm unashamed to be a person of the presence of God. I need the presence of God. And can I tell you something? This world and our generation needs the presence of God. We don't need to hear about God. We don't need to hear testimonies of previous generations encounters with God. We have a generation on the face of the earth that needs a divine collision with the presence of God. And it's not gonna happen unless we create that environment. We owe it to the next generation to create in a habitation, a dwelling place, a resting place for the presence of God. Kalamazoo is going to be a resting place for the Lord. The Lord has marked it out.  It's not gonna be a propaganda hub. It's not gonna be defined by homelessness. It's not gonna be defined by the universities in its midst. Kalamazoo is destined to be a resting place for the presence of God. That's why we are here. Number two of people in pursuit is we will be relentless in our pursuit of transformed lives. It's the gospel of Jesus Christ that transforms lives. Romans 1, verse 16 through 17, Paul says, I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek, for in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, the righteous shall live by faith. First Corinthians 1, 18 says, for the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. Romans 10, verse 13 through 15 says, for everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved, how then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news. Radiant, we want beautiful feet. We want beautiful feet.  I promise you, it's beautiful. I've broken every one of my toes.  I got hobbit feet, but I want us as the body of Christ, the church of Jesus Christ in our city to be known in the spirit as those with beautiful feet because we are actively bringing the gospel to every person, young, old, black, white, brown, and whatever other color, ethnicity, language, socioeconomic status, orientation, identity, whatever they are. I believe that Jesus is an equal opportunity, savior and life transformer, and we are going to adamantly and relentlessly pursue transformed lives at all costs. Cause that's what Jesus came to do. The cross is not about God coming down and telling us we're all okay. The cross is the price that was paid for all of us who are not okay, who have been dead in our sins, enemies of God who could not fix ourselves and destined for hell, separated from God for all eternity. The cross is God's only solution, not plan B, not one plan among many. There is no other name given among men by which we must be saved other than the name of Jesus. And the gospel is the message that has the ability to transform lives. And that's why we will relentlessly preach and proclaim and live out the implications of the gospel as a people. That's what the gospel is. The gospel is Jesus died. Jesus died in our place. He bore our sins, our shame, our guilt, our curse. And then God raised him from the dead, elevated him above all other names. And he has said, just like we read here, whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Is anybody else grateful for the grace of God and for the salvation of Jesus? I got to wake this 9 a.m. up a little bit. I'm grateful for the cross because it is the power of God and salvation. But listen, Arthur Wallace one time said, you can't offer a pardon to somebody who doesn't know that they've been convicted of a crime. And half the problem is we're living in a world where nobody wants to confront the issue of our sin and our separation from God. We have to preach the whole Bible, but the other, the flip side of that is, I got bad news and I got good news. The bad news is you are sick. You are ridden with sin.  But the flip side of that, the good news is Jesus saves. Jesus rescues. You're not here today because you're good. You're here today because God is good. We're not worshiping as those who got it all together. We're here worshiping the only one who has it all together. And his name is Jesus and we are going to relentlessly preach that. And listen, you might think, well, of course, we're gonna preach that. That's what churches do. We preach, right? We preach the Bible. Well, listen. In our day and age, there is a spirit at work in this generation that wants to silence anybody who talks about sin, talks about the exclusivity of Christ, preaches the whole Bible and tells anybody that there is a literal hell to avoid and that Jesus is the only way. You can preach that to some people, but you can't preach that to all people. And if you do that, you're gonna get canceled. I'm gonna tell you this. I would rather be canceled in history than to be canceled in eternity. Canceling is nothing new to the church. The way they canceled the gospel in the first century was they cut your head off or they put you in jail or they put you in shackles. Cancel culture is nothing new. Cancel culture is not political, cancer culture is spiritual. It is the devil's reaction to the nuclear powered transforming power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And yet here's what I know that wherever sin abounds, grace does much more abound. I am so radically committed to Jesus' desire and ability to save anybody that we are going to boldly preach it and we're gonna shout it from the mountain tops. We believe the word of God. And we wanna be a people not just from the pulpit, but we wanna be a people who believe that. I want you to believe that.  I want us to walk the streets like we believe that. I want us to pray like we believe that. I want us to share our testimony and invite people to receive Christ like we believe that.  The Bible says Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. He found me when I was 12 years old and I am eternally grateful for that. I don't know when it was or where it was that he found you, but the same way he found you, he wants to save and he wants to reach those who right now are in our city, 200,000 people within 20 minutes of all of our locations who are right now speeding fast forward ahead into an eternity without Jesus Christ. And there is no other way. Church, we have to have a deep conviction and a commitment to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Number three, we will tirelessly labor for the flourishing of this city. Jeremiah 29, the Lord says, the God of Israel to all the exiles whom I've sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon, might as well just put in there in Kalamazoo, build houses and live in them, plant gardens and eat their produce, take wives and have sons and daughters, take wives for your sons and give your daughters a marriage that they might bear sons and daughters. Somebody said amen and multiply there and do not decrease, but seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile and pray to the Lord on its behalf for its welfare. For when you find its welfare, you will find your own welfare. We are committed and will tirelessly labor for the flourishing of our city. And when I say our city, I'm not just talking about Kalamazoo, I'm talking about wherever the Lord has put us in this county and multiple counties in a region, in an area we will labor for the flourishing of the place that God has planted us, which means we're gonna continue to lead the way in generosity towards agencies and ministries that serve the poor and underserved and needy in our city. Many of you might not even know what we do in our cities because maybe all you've ever read about is an MLive article or maybe you've only heard rumors or you've had people at work say, hey, why are you guys downtown? What are you doing there? Whether it's in Richland, Portage, downtown. But let me tell you what we do in our city. You do this, we do this together. Beyond praying morning, noon, and night every single day, beyond now having a location in the heart of our city. We, on a regular basis, partner financially and through volunteers with these agencies, alternatives of Kalamazoo, alongside ministries, Youth for Christ, Tree of Life Schools, Loaves and Fishes, the Kalamazoo Gospel Mission Urban Alliance, Power Up, Warm Kids, Communities and Schools, Kindness Act, K-PAP, Fostering Partnerships, Reach the Forgotten and Redeemed Rides. You aren't gonna find anybody in this city that is more invested into the flourishing of our city. Why? Because God's called us to that. He's called us to pray. He's called us to preach, but He's also called us to plant our lives and to invest and to be involved in things that produce flourishing in kids and in family and the welfare and the poor and the needy and to those who can't help themselves.  A large portion of it goes into things right here in our own city for the flourishing. We want our city to flourish, to thrive. We don't want it to be marked by all the negativity or all the problems that we see from time to time. On any given day, many of you serve as first responders, as teachers, as police officers and law enforcement, as those who work in the city communities, scattered across businesses and corporations across our city, and every single one of us have the same call that Jesus gave one of us, which is to be salt and light. And all of us, we carry within us the same desire that Jesus has for our city, which is to see it flourish, to see it grow, to see it strong, to see strong families, strong churches, strong businesses, and to not see darkness prevail, but to see the light of the glorious gospel that Jesus shined in very direct ways and in very indirect ways, because God cares about all of those things. The Bible says that God causes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust. How many of you know God's just good? God's just good, and we want to be good in our city, working for the common good of our city. And we're not just going to maintain that, we're going to continue to grow and to increase in that. The last of our pursuits is this. With urgency and joy, we will pursue an inheritance for Jesus from the nations of the earth. One of the commitments that Jane and I made 26 years ago was we said if radiant or any church that we build cannot be a blessing to the nations, we don't want to have anything to do with it. We're missionaries at heart. We move down here as missionaries to Kalamazoo. If we would have had our way, we may have been missionaries in a foreign nation. We actually thought about it in the early days of being married, of moving to the Philippines and being church planners and teaching in a Bible school. God made it very clear that we would do more to impact and reach the nations of the world by planting and building a missions focused church than we ever would by going by ourselves. And that has been a focus for us. The very first check in our brand new checkbook of at that time, Resurrection Life Church of Richland, check number 1001, before it was to a building, before it was to a payroll, was to the mission field.  And that there are still millions, and may I say even hundreds of millions of people on the planet today that still have not heard of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I don't, why is it that we should hear it thousands of times, but yet there are still people on this planet that have not heard it even once. And we've had a commitment from the very beginning that we would be ascending people, a missions people. In the early days in our old sanctuary, some of you who are here may remember it, some of you downtown or even at Portage may recall that, but we used to have the flags of the nations around the perimeter of our old sanctuary. The nations of the 1040 window in which we would pray every single week and we gave missions dollars. And that has continued even though the flags aren't up, the flags are in our heart.  Right now we have an impact trip that is in Guadalajara, Mexico at the church that we planted. Think about that, we planted a church in a city of 19 million people in Mexico. And right now we have people from radiant church that are there. Right now have a team of people in Kurdistan, Iraq who are helping minister to the Kurds in Iraq at this present moment. And in a few weeks, we're about to send a whole another team of moms, dads, sons and daughters who are gonna go to the Philippines and they're going to be preaching in islands and in villages that have never heard the gospel of Jesus Christ. These impact trips, kingdom builders trips. We do those because we want missions and the nations to become contagious in our hearts. What did Jesus say to the church, Matthew 28, some of his last words? All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father in the name of the Son and in the name of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I've commanded you and behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. We're not there yet, church. All the nations of the world have not been reached. In a few weeks, we're gonna be rolling out to you the blueprint for the big give. What we're going to do this year, we just invested as a church $850,000 in the nation of India in June. What a miracle that is. Last year for big give, we gave $650,000 to like 14 different local and global projects. One of the projects, I'm gonna slip, I'm just gonna tell you. I'm just gonna slip and tell you one of the projects. One of the projects we are taking on for the next decade is helping to translate the Bible in a language that has never previously had the Bible in written form. And radiant church is gonna be responsible for bringing the word of God to a people who've never had it. It's gonna take a decade to do. And a lot of money, we're tackling it. Why? Because Jesus is worthy to receive the rewards of his suffering. Psalm 67 is just a verse that resonates in my heart. It says that your way may be known on earth, your saving power among all the nations.  Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you judge the people with equity and guide the nations upon the earth. I love that, let the nations be glad. There's no more glad nation than a nation that has heard the gospel for the first time and it's changed everything. If you were to fast forward the tape of your life and of history today, remember those days when you could do that? Now you have to like use a remote and on the screen, but the old days, the old VCR days, come on old people. Remember you could fast forward and rewind. If you were to fast forward the tape of history to the end of the age that Jesus made reference to, after he's returned, after he's reigning and ruling, after he's made all of his enemies his footstool, the book of Revelation gives us a snapshot of what that day will look like. And here's what it says, gathered around the throne where people from every nation, from every tribe, from every language and from every kinder group who are worshiping together and saying worthy is the lamb who was slain. We have been redeemed from every nation. Worthy is the lamb. Can you imagine what a day that's gonna be? Go and read it in Revelation. When you read it, here's what you need to realize. You're there. That's not, this isn't a picture of somebody else. No, you and me, we're in that. You wanna know, well, what's my future look like? I don't know everything about your future, but I know that's part of it. And when we're gathered there on that day, there are going to be people from nations of the earth that are there as Jesus's inheritance, that are there because we were people in pursuit who lived our lives with intentionality, gave sacrificially, prayed like it mattered, trained full-time laborers to go to the nations both on short-term and lifelong assignments. And in that moment, we are gonna come rejoicing into the very presence of Jesus, either by rapture or resurrection, and we are going to join our voices together with the voices of people from other nations that are there because we sacrificed, we prayed, we gave, we went. And I want you to know on that day, the only tears that are gonna be allowed in heaven are the tears of joy at seeing the faithfulness of God. Radiant Church were called to be a people in pursuit. Let's give our full attention to the one who's on the throne. Would you stand with me at whatever location you're at? I wanna invite those campus, those location pastors to come into place and here at Richland, we stand together. And I want us to consecrate our hearts and our lives this morning before the Lord. You may be here, you might say, well, before I would ever preach to anybody else, I know I need to get my life right with Jesus. See, because Jesus came for you. Jesus came for me, He came for you. He didn't come looking for people who have their act all together. Jesus came for people who had their lives all messed up, who've been ravaged by sin, who've made terrible decisions, who right now are under the burden of regret and the weight of fear of death.  I've paid the price, trust in me, call on me and I'll save you. You can be born again, have a brand new heart and receive eternal life. So that scene I'm talking about, that can be you there. You say, well, I'm not good enough, you're right, but He is. It's a gift of grace, the great exchange. You trade in your sin and He gives you His righteousness.  If you've never made Jesus Christ your Lord and Savior, I'm talking about really repented of your sin, recognized, I've been in opposition to God, but God have mercy on me, save me and forgive me. Today He will. Today can be the first day of the rest of your eternity. Some of us may be in this room today and we've had an encounter or an experience or even a faith in our past, but we've wandered away from that and we don't know how to reset our lives. Today, He's one step away. If you'll take a step in His direction and say, Jesus, I've made a mess of things, forgive me, I need to start over, I'm coming home like the prodigal son. Today He'll meet you. All over this room, I just wanna invite you to take 30 seconds, close your eyes and bow your heads, giving space for God to move because as I talked about at the very beginning, His presence is here, He's here to save. To heal, to transform. He can change your life if you'll invite Him, if you'll surrender to Him. Today all over this room, if you say, Pastor Lee, I know I need to get my life right with God and today is the day that I'm gonna do it. I know I need to make Jesus the Lord of my life or I know I need to repent and come home. I've been away, I've walked away, I've been living for myself, but today I know I need to get right with God. You've never made Jesus the Lord of your life, maybe that's you. You've never invited Him in, today is the day. I wanna lead you in a prayer of invitation and consecration, but I want you to take that step in His direction. Here's the step.  Here we go. One, two, three, just raise it right where you're at and hold it up. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. I'm looking all over the room. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. I see several hands all the way in the back, sir. I see your hand. So many, so many people saying yes. Thank you, sir. Today's the day, today's the day. If you've not done it, do it right now. There's a young man, you're in your 20s and you're wrestling with it because your intellect is saying no and your pride is telling you no but also the Holy Spirit is drawing you right now. Don't you resist.  Today, find salvation, thank you. You can put your hands down and I'm gonna lead us all in a prayer. The whole room's gonna say this together and when we say amen, Jesus is going to be your Lord and your savior. Let's say this together. Say, Heavenly Father, I come in Jesus' name and I repent of my sin, of living my way and offending your heart. I ask you to forgive me and Jesus, I believe in you. I believe you went to the cross. I believe you rose from the dead and I believe you can save me. Come into my heart and be my Lord and savior. From this day forward, I turn my back on my past. I turn my back on the world and I turn my back on the devil. I belong to Jesus. I am a new creation. All things have passed away. Everything is brand new. I am a child of God, heaven is my home, the church is my family, the Bible is my promises and I will never back down. Thank you for saving me in Jesus' name, amen and amen. Come on, church, can we celebrate that? Come on, that's good news. Hey, hold on, time out, time out. If you're waiting to get excited about something, it's not the Lions game this afternoon. There's nothing more exciting than the fact that lives were just transformed from darkness into light. Come on, church, let's celebrate that. Let's celebrate that. Amen. I wanna invite our prayer team to make their way down front and here's what I'm gonna ask everybody to do.  Just tell them I prayed that prayer today. Second thing is this, if you need prayer for anything, you're already a believer, but you're just like, man, I'm going through something or I want my heart to be awakened or I need healing in my body. We believe the presence of God changes everything. If you need a touch from God, we're gonna invite you to come and receive prayer. And everybody, as we walk out the doors, let's go in pursuit of the presence of God, the flourishing of our city in the inheritance of nations. In Jesus' name, amen. God bless you.


Repeatedly, throughout the course of the 2020 Democratic Party primary, we were told that we can't go with someone as extreme as Bernie Sanders because he would hurt down-ballot Democrats. For example, if there's a really tight race between, you know, a Republican and a more conservative Democrat who doesn't necessarily feel as if they can be as progressive as someone like AOC or Bernie Sanders, Bernie is going to hurt that individual in that race. But we all knew that that was a lie. Bernie was the better candidate for down-ticket Democrats because if you excite the base and bring out a lot of young people, then in all of these districts, if Bernie increases turnout, that's going to be conducive to more Democrat victories because when turnout is high, Democrats win. When it's low, they lose. That's a really easy way to look at whether or not a candidate is viable. Will they be able to turn out the base? Now, what's interesting is that the opposite is now happening, right? When pundits and, you know, Democratic Party establishment figures told us that Joe Biden was the more safer bet, well, now what's happening is that Joe Biden quite literally is hurting down-ballot races, one in particular that's winnable, one that Democrats need to win back. So we all remember Susan Collins, how in 2018, after pretending to be on the fence, she voted to confirm Brett Kavanaugh in alleged rapists. So there was a lot of momentum to unseat her. There was a GoFundMe where they raised more than a million dollars, I think, to go to her eventual opponent. Well, fast forward to 2020, and Democrats view Sarah Gideon, who is, I believe, the speaker of the House for Maine as the frontrunner. And Nathan Bernard, a journalist, reported on this story about how basically she's being harmed by Joe Biden because she based her entire campaign off of defeating Susan Collins because she voted for an alleged rapist. Meanwhile, look at Joe Biden. Tareid came out with these allegations, and Sarah Gideon hasn't said anything about Joe Biden. Now, the primary isn't over yet, but a lot of people view Sarah Gideon as the frontrunner since, you know, she already has power. She has the state and national party support. So in the event, she becomes the Democratic Party's nominee in Maine for the Senate Seed. Her association with Joe Biden could tank her. Yeah. So Nathan Bernard explains, Maine House Speaker Sarah Gideon says she's running against Susan Collins in part because the Republican Senator voted to confirm Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court despite a sexual assault allegation made against him. But Gideon has been mum about Tareid's claim that Joe Biden sexually assaulted her in 1993 when Reid worked as an aide in his Senate office. Now, Republicans are trying to use Gideon's silence on Reid's allegations to blunt what had been one of the Democratic frontrunner's sharpest attacks against Collins. Meanwhile, the two more progressive candidates vying with Gideon for their party's nomination are warning that Democratic leader's hypocrisy on this issue will cost the party votes and damage its credibility. Gideon endorsed Biden's bid for the White House on March 3rd and doubled down on her support for the former Vice President last week as Reid's story snowballed into a major political issue. In response to Maine's inquiry about Gideon's position on Reid's allegations, her team pointed to a statement the candidate released last week. Sexual assault and sexual harassment are incredibly serious issues and for too long people have been too afraid to come forward, the statement read. Every person should be able to come forward and tell their story and have it thoroughly looked into. Same talking points as we heard from other Biden surrogates. The other Democrat on the ballot in the party's July 14th primary is Betsy Sweet, a former executive director of the Maine Women's Lobby whose resume also includes work as a sexual harassment prevention trainer and advocate for victims of sexual assault. To Grant Reid's claim, any less respect than we granted Ford's is to abandon our credibility as a party, our integrity as leaders, and our responsibility as human beings to listen to all survivors of sexual violence, Sweet told Maynard. We must take every claim seriously, even if it is politically inconvenient. The Maine GOP wasted no time attacking Gideon on this issue.  It states, Joe Biden was accused of sexual assault and Gideon has yet to say a single word about Tara Reid, not even to offer Reid praise for coming forward, just as she did for Christine Blasey Ford. According to Brian Schwartz of CNBC, numerous national political groups aligned with the GOP are preparing to spend big money to spread the message that Gideon's position on Reid is hypocritical. So you're seeing how Joe Biden in a concrete way is hurting who Democrats believe will be the nominee. They believe she's the front runner and I haven't seen polls but maybe she is. Now this is just one race and I want to remind you that this is a microcosm of what we're going to see happen throughout the country because anyone who is going up against a Republican, they're going to, the GOP is going to find whatever that individual said about Christine Blasey Ford and compare what that person said about Tara Reid and if there's hypocrisy right there, the GOP will weaponize it. So this isn't just about, you know, Susan Collins in Maine and Joe Biden and Sarah Gideon. This is going to be a huge issue that impacts Democrats across the country. And you know, the sad part is that this might not just hurt corporate Democrats, conservative Democrats. This could hurt more progressive Democrats as well who haven't really said that much about Tara Reid but were very vocal rightfully so I think about Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. This could be one of the worst disasters ever. Everything that they told us about Joe Biden being the safer, more electable candidate was completely wrong. Everything that they told us about Joe Biden being the better choice for down-ticket Democrats and competitive races is now demonstrably false if GOP really does what they're planning to do and spend big to prove Democrats are hypocrites. This could be bad. Now, with regard to that Senate race, it's not over. Sarah Gideon, if she truly cared about having Susan Collins be defeated, she should step down because there are actually really good options currently running. You don't have to vote for Sarah Gideon if you live in the state of Maine. And Sarah Gideon's hypocrisy, believe it or not, isn't the only issue that she has.  Who is going to be excited by this? So people aren't going to vote for someone who is a hypocrite, who doesn't also have policy prescriptions that she's offering to constituents. I mean, I could see, all right, she's a hypocrite, but she supports Medicare for all. So maybe I'll vote for her. No, there's nothing there. So you're hurting the Democratic Party's chances of ousting Susan Collins, which is really important. Now other choices who you should vote for if you live in Maine include Green Party candidate Lisa Savage, who is running on a highly progressive platform. And since Maine has ranked choice voting, this is a competitive race. Lisa Savage can actually win. And when it comes to Democrats, you have Betsy Sweet, who is a justice Democrat running on an incredibly progressive platform. She's kind of the underdog, but she is the Democratic alternative to Sarah Gideon.  Either of those candidates, Lisa Savage or Betsy Sweet, they have a better chance at beating Susan Collins because they haven't endorsed Joe Biden. They haven't been silent on Tara Reid's allegations. So they're not hypocrites. Their reputations aren't tarnished, right? So GOP can't use that strategy against them. But when it comes to Sarah Gideon, this is a disaster. You're going to ruin the one chance that we have to replace a very vulnerable Republican. What are you doing? What are you doing? And again, this isn't just about Maine. This is going to be an issue that we see come up time and again in races throughout the country. Look, I know that it's out of the question. It probably will never happen. But if Joe Biden was serious about Democrats taking back the White House, he'd resign. He would resign because as Democrats repeatedly pointed out when Bernie was the front-runner, this isn't just about the White House. This is about taking back the Senate, keeping the House. And now their guy, who they propped up, is now jeopardizing the Democratic Party's chances of stopping right-wing extremism. It's just, it's awful. It's awful. And I'm not going to say I told you so because it's not like I get to take any glory in this defeat because we all have to bear the brunt of their failures. Their failures aren't going to impact them. The Democratic Party is comprised largely of very wealthy, comfortable people. It is the working class who's going to deal with increasing right-wing extremism and fascism. And they just, they don't seem to care. To them, the goal isn't necessarily to defeat Republicans, even though they say, you know, beating Donald Trump, taking back the Senate is their number one priority. It's about beating the left. And I think that this election should definitely confirm that to you if you weren't necessarily sure that that was in fact their intentions. They don't care about beating Republicans. They just care about beating the left. And once they beat the left, they've won. Nothing else for them to do. Whatever happens happens. As long as they maintain power in the Democratic Party apparatus, then they've won, period.


This is stock number 971A, we are here at Summit Automotive in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. You're new and used Jeep headquarters. Today we are checking out this super clean 2015 Jeep Patriot high altitude package. This vehicle has a 2.4 liter four cylinder motor and from this HD video you will be able to tell that for the age and miles. This vehicle is in really nice condition. That clear coat is the color we shoot all of our videos in 1080p, so if you have HD capabilities on your computer tablet or smartphone device, turn them on right now because it is like you're right here looking at the vehicle with me and definitely your best way to check out the vehicle before seeing it in person comes with the painted alloy rims and it has Douglas all season 21560 R17 tires with a lot of good tread left, I'd say 70 to 80% of the tread left on those tires. These are nice and clear, does come with the factory fog lamps, there are no major dents or dings or cracks on the front bumper. Passengers side fender is in really nice condition and the passengers side rim is very nice as well, those brakes look pretty new on there. Possibly we did those in our safety inspection of the vehicle in the front as we come around to the back here or the side. No major dents or dings, very nice and clean down this side of the vehicle. We take these HD videos so if you are far away or even if you're close by and just can't make the trip down you can still see the vehicle, hear the vehicle and have confidence in what you're looking at before you even get here. Back tires have a little bit less than or right around half the tread but a little bit less tread than the front tires. Four wheel disc brakes on the four wheel drive Patriots as we come around to the back you'll notice it does have a receiver hitch and a four pin wiring. The rear gate is in really nice condition, I didn't see any dents or dings or cracks on that rear bumper, that's in really nice shape. Back storage area is nice and clean and because it's a four wheel drive you do get a spare tire back here. Those seats do fold down nice and flat, we'll show you that in a second. Gate shuts nice and solidly and as you go down this side of the vehicle, very clean as well. There's no one tiny little ding on that rear quarter there but nothing too major but that's why we show the videos so you can get the most accurate representation possible. Down the rest of this side very very clean, comes with heated mirrors, inside the high altitude package gives you the dark charcoal black interior. There are no rips or tears on the seats, they're in really nice condition. Power driver seat, both of these front seats are heated, we have factory floor mats throughout and this one comes with power windows power locks and power mirrors. As we hop inside the vehicle here and see that this one has 99,803 miles, instrument cluster is very nice and clean, comes with the leather wrapped steering wheel, no scuffs or scrapes or rips on that, cruise controls on the right, information center controls on the left and it does have audio controls on the back of the steering wheel. AM FM and Sirius XM radio capabilities on the radio, there's an aux jack, climate controls right there, down here your heated seat buttons and your automatic transmission is right there. Passengers side floor mat and seat are in excellent condition, no rips or tears on that and it does come with the power sunroof, headliners nice and clean and you do get map lights up there. We'll take a quick look at the back seats and then we'll check out under the hood, back seats are just as clean as the front seats, no rips or tears back here, does have the latch child safety system for car seats, factory floor mats throughout back here as well and these seats do fold down, you do need two hands to do it usually, so you go down really nice and flat like so, which is nice if you get a whole bunch of extra stuff and we'll take a quick look under the hood, I would personally like to thank you for checking out the video today hopefully from this HD video, you'll been able to tell just how clean this Jeep is all the way around, inside and out, under the hood we have the 2.4 liter dual VVT motor engine base, very clean runs very smooth, this Jeep has been fully safety and inspected by our service shop, has a fresh oil and filter change, all the fluids have been checked and topped off and this one is 100% ready to go, to see more pictures of this Jeep or one of our other 450 new and used cars, trucks, SUVs, minivans, Wranglers, you name it we got to go to our website, www.summitauto.com full pictures and descriptions of every single vehicle from two locations, all at summitauto.com and if you'd like to check out more HD videos you can go to youtube.com slash summit auto remember to like subscribe and share on this video and all the videos that you see there, in fact in a second you will see a link to subscribe to our YouTube channel on your left, it links more used inventory videos like this one on your right if you have not been to our website, on the bottom link to this vehicle on our website click those check us out and we really look forward to helping you with this super clean 2015 Jeep Patriot high altitude latitude, thanks again.


Natural Born Killers movie review. Hey, what's up guys, it's Josh here. Today I want to do a little movie review on a movie called Natural Born Killers, I think from 1994, which was just a great year for movies. But this is a movie that I'd heard of a lot. I'd seen the cover a lot. I'd heard Quentin Tarantino kind of had his hand in it. I'd heard it was kind of like a horror movie. For some reason, I thought this movie was gonna be just really cringy and just evil and just a dark ride that I didn't really want to go on. And I guess I was looking at some like Quentin Tarantino interviews and stuff. And I really obviously like Quentin Tarantino and his stuff. And I also like True Romance, which is something he wrote. Really, really like True Romance. If he had a hand in it, this was like his last movie before he started creating his own movies. I actually really, really, really enjoyed this movie. But it is for a specific kind of person. However, it just spoke to me in all the right ways. And this is really Tarantino meets serial killers. Like if you could imagine Quentin Tarantino writing a movie about a serial killer couple, I mean, this is as close as you could get to it, 100%. The story is basically, like I was just saying, it's a couple, there's serial killers. You end up finding out that there is some childhood trauma between both of them. This is kind of what I would have thought Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was gonna be just kind of like a weird, wild ride where nothing's really making sense, but these guys are kind of crazy. That's kind of how it is. There's much more of a romantic side to this movie than I would have thought. And I think that's what really kind of holds it through. And it almost feels a little bit like true romance and almost a little bit like the opening scene of Pulp Fiction because it's got this couple and they're kind of crazy. It's just basically this long journey between two crazy people who are serial killers. All right guys, let's jump into the prose of this movie. The prose is that it's very unique. I can't think of any other movie that really does what this movie does. It's really got a unique style and it feels much more like a normal movie and a romance than most of the other kind of horror style movies.  And although it's brutal, it's kind of done in this way to where it's like it doesn't feel as grim and as evil as it could be. It's almost like this wacky wild ride. And I actually can't think of any other movie like this to be honest. This movie's got some really noticeable like early 90s, grungy, almost like punk rock style vibes in here. And it's definitely early 90s. If this movie had come out around 2000, the music had kind of changed by then. It's definitely got a grungy early 90s feel but I actually really like this because this movie just absolutely swings for the fences. Another pro was Robert Downey Jr. So obviously I've liked Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man and all the other stuff he's done since then. And apparently Robert Downey Jr. like really fell off the wagon or really just crashed for like 10 years or 15 years. So I never really knew of anything Robert Downey Jr. did a long time ago because he did act for a while. He went away for a long time and he came back. But Robert Downey Jr. is in this movie. He actually plays a pretty pivotal role in this movie and he's really, really, really good in this movie in my opinion because I expected him to kind of like not really be able to deliver performance that he could do now. I think he actually kills it in this movie and he's got an accent. I just really enjoyed Robert Downey Jr. in this movie. I couldn't believe he was in there and he plays a great role in my opinion. And then the last pro, like I was saying, is that it's much more of a normal movie and a romance movie. It does go crazy. It does get very dark and it does go very grim but it's kind of got this normal story arch and normal romance kind of in the back. So it just is so much easier to watch in my opinion versus a normal slasher. All right guys, let's jump into the cons of this movie. I only had a few. They have some really dated effects in this movie. Like if you have any sort of iPhone or something or like any sort of basic movie editor, you probably have access to the effects that were in this movie. Black and white or just the one that inverts the colors, things like that. So there's a lot of really dated effects in here. And again, the old 90s, early 90s feel. I know that's gonna not be for some people, who can't appreciate that style vibe or don't like that, you know, more of aggressive style early 90s music are probably not gonna like that. So it's really like if you like that, you're gonna love it. If you don't like it, it's just gonna be more of that aggressive early 90s rock. And then the last kind of hand was that it was a tad long. It's not really something I wanna take away from it but I did feel it just dragged just a little bit. They have these scenes where the characters are kind of like tripping out and they're switching up the filters a lot. And I felt that was great but just for the pacing nowadays, I wish it was cut like five, maybe 10 minutes. I mean, just the slightest bit to move it along a little faster. But besides that, I really don't have any problems with this movie for me personally. Probably the most normal yet aggressive kind of like horror movie that there is. And it's one that I'll probably revisit quite a bit because I just really enjoy it. Again, it's almost kind of like an early 90s acid trip rock music video to me. This movie is just crazy. I couldn't believe Robert Downey Jr. all that good stuff. So if I were to give it a personal rating, I would give this movie an 8.5 out of 10. I think this movie is really, really good. What I recommended for you depends on if you could, you know, appreciate that early 90s feel. If I were to say buy, watch or pass on this movie, I would say watch. For me, I would own this movie. This movie kind of spoke to a very old side of me. I haven't really felt those early 90s like vibes but also really entertaining in a long time. So I actually just really enjoyed this movie. So anyways guys, let me know what you think of this movie. Have you seen it? Have you not seen it? I'd be very interested to see down below. We're on the road of 50,000 subscribers and I could not do it without any of you guys' help. You guys are the best. I'm having a great day out here. Hopefully having a great day at home. See you on the next video. Peace.


Hey guys, welcome to a brand new series I'm going to try and do here primarily on YouTube where we are going to look at really cool vintage drum related news articles throughout history. And the reason I'm doing this is because for the last couple months I've been getting these unbelievable packages from a gentleman named Jerry Reimann who's been putting together something called Percussion in the News. And what this is is a very thick binder where he's going through I believe newspaper dot com and other resources and is just documenting a bunch of just really cool vintage drum ads. I mean like look at this drumming for socialism I mean this is that's from 1903 there's lots of them that are like just your everyday newspaper and make it so you can see it in newspaper like ads tons of cool stuff so I'm going to do a lot of these but anyway I want to keep them short and sweet so I'm going to jump right into this one. So for the very first one we're going to look at today I want to look at this awesome one I came across that is called How the Microphone Was Invented. Let's jump into this article this is from Times Record News in Wichita Falls, Texas from July 3rd 1927. I'm just going to read it and you can look at the picture and at the end I did I probably won't do this on other ones but I did a little kind of fact checking so I'll include a newer bit of information at the end after we read this awesome article. So let's just jump in and read this and remember that this is a news article from 1927 so the grammar and just kind of the way it reads is what's written so it might sound a little weird but let's just see what happens. So How the Microphone Was Invented. In Washington the other day there was a little celebration in honor of the 50th birthday of Mike, M-I-K-E, on which occasion, Mike's inventor Emilio Berliner made a speech telling how he hit upon the idea. Mike in quotations is the colloquial term for the microphone which made the telephone a successful and utilizable invention. Sixty years ago in 1867 Berliner was a clerk in a dry goods store. He had come to America not long before as an immigrant boy from Germany. To while away his leisure hours he took upon the study of electric and the phenomena of sound. When in 1867 the invention of the telephone became known it occurred to him that possibly sound vibrations might be carried by electricity. He bought a toy drum cut it in halves and used one of the latter for his experiment. From the ram of the drum head he suspended a little steel ball on the end of a wire. In such fashion that the ball was in loose contact with the point of a sewing needle passing through the disc of wood glued to the center of the drum head inside. When an electric current was passed through the point of contact it set up vibrations which were carried along a line wire to a telephone receiver. The arrangement formed a battery transmitter. Mr. Berliner spoke against the drum head. His voice was heard at the other end of the line. He had invented the microphone. The original toy drum model is today preserved in the United States National Museum. And then this little bottom bit of text that goes under the photo to explain it is actually a really good way of summing all this up. So it says the first microphone which was made 50 years ago consisted of a toy drum cut in halves with a small steel ball suspended on a wire attached to the rim of a drum head. So yeah pretty awesome old article from 1927 which really connects how the drum which in this case a toy drum was used for the invention of a microphone which they say the microphone but so let's clarify that a little bit here. So I have an article up from wired.com which is you know pretty reputable website which I'm just going to read here and we'll kind of see a little more information about what specific type of microphone this is referring to because again in 1927 maybe it wasn't the most actually accurate information. So this is titled Carbon Button Microphone as the article. This drum like device is a carbon button microphone patented by Emil Berliner in 1877. It was one of the first ever created and by far the most usable. Berliner is credited with inventing the carbon button microphone in 1876 though there were other microphone technologies in existence. Berliner's design was more robust than the rest including a liquid based microphone invented by Alexander Graham Bell. Bell himself was so impressed with the carbon button that he had bought the rights from Berliner for $50,000 or $1.1 million in today's money so he could use it in his telephone prototypes. Unfortunately for Berliner his patent didn't survive a legal challenge which resulted in an 1892 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that gave the credit to Thomas Edison which is interesting. In fact neither Berliner nor Edison could rightfully claim full credit for the carbon button mic. The idea for it had been around for years before they began experiments though it had never been perfected. So I don't know I just think it's neat drum history stuff there's more information about the actual microphone the rest of these will probably be a little more specific to brands and really neat articles within percussion in the news by Jerry Reiman which big thank you to Jerry for sending me this and I hope you guys enjoyed this video and there'll be much more which will be even more drum focused on Leedy tricks on Rogers, Gretch there's just so many articles in here so hope you enjoyed the video please subscribe it like comment let me know what you guys want to hear next you want to hear drum companies or kind of fun weirdo articles kind of like this one or anything let me know and I'll see if I can find it thanks for watching