Today is a good day to be in church, a good day to be here at New Hope because we are kicking off a new teaching series, uh, as Lance said before, call uh called Colossians Life in Christ. And uh, if you go to our website, uh you can uh I think even on the link is on the front page. You uh click on the Colossians, find out more, and we've actually got resources there that you can access and created a weekly plan that you can follow along with, and we've invited all our small groups to participate uh as we journey through the next nine weeks through uh this book that Paul writes to uh the church in Colossae. And so that's an invitation for you to participate as we journey as a church, and as Lance said uh before, we are kicking off the small group connect nights. Uh, if you are not part of a small group, to join in, join in for a term, taste it and see, and uh and journey with us through Colossians. And uh, as Paul writes to the church in in Colossae, he is in in many ways, it's a lovely letter, it's an affirming letter as he writes and celebrates and rejoices and reminds the church that's been established there in Colossae of what it means to live in Christ, what it means to be a disciple of Christ, what it means to be a follower of Christ. And you we see this as we journey, we're gonna find this as we work through this book together that we find that there is as we are called to follow Christ, we give up some things. We are called to surrender our life, we're called to follow. There is a cost in living in Christ, but we don't just give up things, it's as we give up our life, we actually gain life. We find freedom, peace, and purpose. And Paul reminds the church there in Colossae, and he reminds us today as well, and throughout this series, that what we get from Christ is far greater. It outweighs what we give. You know, there's a little uh statement or saying or perhaps joke that uh that goes, how do you know if you've met someone who's run a marathon? And it's because they will tell you within the first five minutes of meeting them that they've run a marathon. And uh I I've got to say I'm guilty of that. And uh I've I know that I've had conversations with a whole bunch of you here in the church already uh about running, and there are some seriously impressive fast runners uh in the church, so I'm in a whole bunch of danger with the story that I'm about to share. Uh, but we all have our own story, and running is a journey and a story as well. I love that metaphor. Uh I uh I ran uh I've run several marathons. I ran my first marathon when I was in my mid-20s. I was living in London and I just decided to apply for the ballot. I used to, you know, I used to jog a bit. I thought I was a uh a decent runner. I did okay at school, and so I just put in for the ballot and I managed to get into the London marathon. And so I was like, great, so I had to go to the shop and I bought some shoes and I just started, I created an Excel plan and I just started running. And I got injured along the way. I didn't really take it too seriously, but I thought I'm a good runner, it'll be okay. And then it came to the day, thousands and thousands of people at London, uh, in starting in Greenwich, ran away. It was amazing. There are people everywhere. It was just I was having the most fun. It was amazing. People were cheering, they're handing out lollies. I had my name, Andy, on my shirt, and people going, come on, Andy, keep going into it. I said, Yes, I can, I'm doing so well, until I hit about the 30k mark. And then I hit this thing called the wall. Anyone heard of the wall? And my life dramatically turned around in that moment. All of a sudden, I was hating life. It was awful. I my I just slowed down, I was in so much pain, and all those people yelling, come on, Andy, you can do it. I was thinking, have you ever run a marathon before? Do you know how much pain I'm in? Yeah, it's fine for you to say, Come on, Andy. I'm dying here. I don't want your lollies. I managed to get to the end and it was amazing. Came into came down the mail in St. James's Park and got my mantle, and I was actually feeling great after finishing, and I thought that I'd run a pretty good time until I was warming down at a tree in St. James's Park with two other women who'd finished at the same time, and I realized, oh, I'm not that good a runner. And it's not because they're women, it's because one of the women was in her 60s, and the other one was the same age as me, but she was wearing a chicken suit. And at that moment I realized I'm not a good runner. So I I decided a couple of years ago to change that narrative, and I signed up for the Brisbane Marathon, and uh I was a lot more serious this time, and I had a bold, a bold plan to run 30 minutes quicker than I did when I ran in my 20s in London. And so I began to listen to podcasts and running coaches, and I took it really seriously. I was downloading a whole bunch of apps, and I had a plan which I was committed to following. And so I had this plan, I had an eating plan which I followed loosely. Uh I did I did particular strengthening and stretching exercises. I bought a whole range of shoes, just Meg Stilts needs needs therapy, uh, because the amount of time I spent in DFO uh looking for various shoes, but most importantly, I had a running plan and I followed it meticulously. And every every week I was just following this plan from a trusted coach uh on my phone on an app. And uh, but it was confusing. You know, I'd turn up, I'd be running five times a week, and uh most of my running was slow, like they said, you've just got to run slow. A bulk of my running was running way slower than my goal pace. And I did a bit of sprinting, you know, in the in the weeks, but I never in my whole training did I ever run even close to my marathon pace for an extended period of time. And so I just had to trust the process, and I just did the process, and I remember getting to the start line at the Brisbane Marathon a couple of years ago with this hope in my heart of uh running a PB, running 30 minutes quicker than I did when I was 26, and having no idea how it would go because I'd never run that pace. I didn't know if I could do 10k at that pace, and off we went and it ran off. And Megs and the kids were dragged along, and they were cheering me and go, Andy. Um actually, I don't get called Andy, don't ever call me Andy. Think about it. And I it blew my mind that I actually ran 33 minutes quicker than I did when I was 26 years old. And I tell you, it was it's a small brag moment. Um it actually blew my mind that actually walking a process, even though you're unsure of the outcome, even though you're not sure of what's in you, then it reveals itself when it comes to the time. And actually, it's really encouraged my spiritual life of trusting the process that that God invites us into in relationship with Him, even though sometimes we can't see the fruit, even though we can't always say, Well, I've spent time in God's word, I've been praying, I've been crying out, but I don't seem to see anything. God, where are you? Or what are you doing in my life? God is faithful, God is at work, and when we walk with him and we trust the process that he has given us, there will be fruit. We are just called to the life of discipleship, or as Eugene Peterson calls, long obedience in the same direction. And as Paul begins his letter to the church in Colossae, it's almost these first verses of summary of what is to come, but he is wanting to encourage the church and affirm the church in their faithfulness because when they walk, when we walk faithfully, there will be, we can trust the process, there will be fruit. So we're gonna read from one from Colossians chapter one this morning. If you've got your Bibles, feel free to open. I'm gonna read the first 14 verses as we begin this journey with Paul, as he writes to the church in Colossae and as he writes to us this morning. Colossians chapter 1, words will be on the screen behind me as well. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to God's holy people in Colossae, the faithful brothers and sisters in Christ. Grace and peace to you from God our Father. We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love you have for all God's people, the faith and love that spring from your the hope stored up for you in heaven, and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel that has come to you. In the same way, the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world, just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and truly understood God's grace. You learned it from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf, and who also told us of your love in the Spirit. For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way, bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might, so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son, He loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Paul here reminds the church of their faith and points to the hope that is in their heart that drives them on in their faith. See, we will be faithful to what we have faith for. You understand that? We will be faithful to the things that we have faith for. Every one of us has faith. We all live with faith. Many of us here this morning have placed our faith in Jesus Christ, made him Lord and King of our life, and we are living a life of discipleship. We get it wrong at times, but we are seeking to be faithful followers of Jesus. But I'm not going to assume that all of us here are followers of Jesus. You may have walked through the doors of the church for the first time, the first time in a long time, and you've got questions. Maybe you're a person of you would say no faith, but you do have a faith, agnostic or atheist. Perhaps you've come from a different faith tradition. We all have different stories, but I would argue and say that every one of us lives with faith in our heart, and we live faithfully to the thing that we have in our heart, the what we have faith for. The way that we can tell it, the way that we can see it, is through the values and the beliefs that we live and we make decisions by. Where we spend our money, where we spend our time, where we spend our attention, where we uh spend and invest our relationships. It reveals our deepest desires, hopes, and dreams. Where we spend our resources, where we spend our attention, reveals what matters to us most, what we have faith for. And our faith is revealed and stirred by the hope that's in our heart. There's a, to use a Greek word, a telos, an outcome, a desired outcome. Just as I had a desired outcome to run a marathon in a certain time, that's what drove me, the hope of running across the line with that time. So too we live and make decisions every day based on a vision in our heart for what we hope for. Does that make sense? Sometimes we don't cognitively understand it, but just every decision we make is shaped by the hope that sits in our heart. Hope is a powerful motivator. Hope moves us, hope drives us. Some of you may have heard of Victor Frankel, the Jewish psycho uh psychologist who survived a Nazi concentration camp and continued to write and work in both Europe and in the United States. His experiences and his observations in the concent in the Nazi concentration camp shaped much of his work and his reflections, and it led to him reading Man's Search for Meaning. Anyone read that book? I think it used to be uh a school, something that people, students would read at school or at university. In his book, he makes this point as he reflects. He says, the prisoner who had lost faith in the future, his future was doomed. With his loss of belief in the future, he also lost spiritual hold. He let himself decline and became subject to the mental and physical, to mental and physical decay. When we lose hope, we lose motivation. When we lose hope, we lose life itself. I want to ask you a question as I asked myself a question this morning. What are you focused on? As we sit here in this room and often we don't take an audit of what's going on in our world, in our life, what drives us, what moves us, but what what is your life focused on? What are you hoping for? Because that's what you will be faithful to. What you are hoping for, what you're living for, will be revealed in what you're faithful to. And Paul, as he writes to the church in Colosse, identifies and celebrates and encourages the church because he sees there's a hope in their heart that reveals their faith. And they are a faithful church. Verse 2, Paul writes to God's holy people in Colossae, the faithful brothers and sisters in Christ. He says, You are a faithful people, you are living a faithful life to Christ. And he goes on later to say, this is something that you've learnt by from someone else who is incredibly faithful. In verse 7, we read that it's Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ, who on our on our behalf, who also told us of your love in the spirit. What's Paul saying? Well, it's interesting to note that Paul didn't actually plant Colossae, the church in Colosse. Many of Paul's letters that we read in the New Testament are to churches that he was involved in planting. But the Colossian church wasn't one of them. Epaphorus was the church planter. He's the one who planted and established with others the church there. And he has come and he has shared the good news with Paul, and it's gripped Paul's heart. There's an affection and a love as he hears the news from Epaphoras. He celebrates the fact that Epaphorus is a faithful minister of the gospel. And I'm gonna be honest, to be a church planter, you have got to be faithful. Now we've had the joy, Megan and I, we planted Gateway City seven years ago. It was an absolute joy, and we had an incredible group of people around us who were part of that that planting of a church. We know that that you need to be faithful, and we celebrate as we hear stories that that church is continuing to flourish and grow. We celebrate that. But I learnt it from my father. I learned faithfulness from my father and my my mother. How I grew up in a church planting family. How while I was growing up, we were involved in two different church plants. I remember one of our church plants, incredibly faithful. My mum and dad, passionate, they went around, they walked the streets and knocked on doors and invited people to this church that they were starting in our home, in our house. And I remember the first day that we uh we planted this church, it was in our lounge room, and no one came. But we had the team. I remember leading worship, and my dad preached his heart out, and my siblings were on the welcome team and we're all set up. I think it's why my parents had seven kids. Because one, they knew they just automatically have a ministry team, and more than that, automatically they had a church. It's kind of like, we're here, we've started. And they just faithfully loved and served and cared for the community, invited people. And I I remember watching their church grow from our lounge room to downstairs, to out in a tent in the back, in a gazebo in the backyard, to the sports club, to the school hall. Incredibly faithful people. Church planning requires faithfulness, and Paul celebrates the fact that Epaphras is a faithful church planter, a faithful pastor who has impressed faithfulness into the heart of the church. And so this church is living with faith and hope in its heart. He goes on to say, because we've heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love you have for all God's people, the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven. Paul identifies what the hope is that moves this church forward, what moves the believers forward, what moves us forward, it's it's it's eternity. It's heaven. You know, we all have a vision, I think, of heaven, whether you are a follower of Jesus or not, we all have this desire of heaven and marketing companies, oh well, they know how to leverage that hope. You just need to walk through Doncaster or Eastland or whatever it is, and you'll find and you'll see what heaven looks like for the average secular punter. Selling another way of life, a future life. If you buy this thing, if you wear this thing, if you go on this holiday, if you buy this home, if you have this, you do that, oh, you'll get a glimpse of heaven. I think the secular world is waking up to the fact that it's just all vapor. For the Colossian church and for those of us who are followers of Jesus Christ, we have a deeper hope. It's heaven. But here's the thing, and Paul unpacks this: it's it's not a heaven that's out there and and we wait for, but it's actually a person. We've actually been invited into a hope that is a person, a relationship with Jesus Christ. For he has rescued us, Paul says, from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son, He loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. We've been invited into relationship now and for eternity with the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. We have been invited out, taken out of the kingdom of darkness and brought into the kingdom of light. That is now, with all its suffering and its pain and its struggle, but it will be forever where we will be set free. That is the hope, that is the promise for every follower of Jesus. It was for the church in Colossae and it is for us now. That is the good news. The good news is in our hearts, the good news is that eternity can be in our hearts, the good news is that we can be in relationship with the King of Kings, the one who created us, the one who redeems us, the one who saves us. That is the hope that it we get to have. That is the hope in the heart of the church in Colossae. And that's why we're calling this series Life in Christ. Because that is our hope. That is our joy, that is our song, that we are invited to life in Christ. And the gospel always, life always begets and bears fruit. But if we are to see this life, this joy, this power, this energy, this freedom, this fruit, we are to live a life of faithfulness. And so, as Paul celebrates and says, I see what's going on, and I celebrate the fruit of the gospel in you. As it is going out throughout the whole world, I call you and I encourage you to keep walking faithfully because fruitfulness requires. Fruitfulness demands faithfulness. And so Paul writes in this opening gambit in verse 11, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might, so that you may have great two words, endurance and patience. Endurance and patience. I pray, he says, that you would have the power of the Spirit so that you may endure and have patience. See, faithfulness takes time, it takes effort, it takes consistency, it takes focus, it takes planning, it takes trust. We could use, I've used one analogy at running, I could use another analogy of farming, and I have I have no right to talk about farming up here on stage. Let me tell you, I am no green thumb at all. But I think it's a good analogy. The reason I probably can't speak about it is because uh anything that I look at or touch when it comes to plant life just dies. I uh when I arrived here, Sanette, who's our finance director, she uh she decked out my office with a whole bunch of beautiful plants. And um, anyone love plants, life plants, you got plants around your house? Well done. I just want to say that's amazing because uh those plants that were in my office have been replaced by plastic ones. I now have these amazing, beautiful plastic plants in my office. Um, because all the ones that Senette put in my office um died, or at least they were dying, and she had to rescue them. So I I'm I I have no skill in this area, but I know enough, and I've been enough, been to enough farms to know that there's a whole bunch of work that needs to go in to the preparation before you even get to see fruit, before you even get to taste fruit. There is the tilling of the soil, there is the preparation of the soil, there is the fertilizing and the watering of the soil, there is resource and investment and time and money put into the soil, and then you have to go out and buy the seed and plant the seed, and then you have to trust the sun shines and continues water, and then you begin to just see the first few buds of fruitfulness, but still there's no fruit until right at the end when there is a harvest, and then you take that fruit or that vegetable or whatever it is, and you taste it, and you know whether it's good or not. There is a whole bunch of preparation, there's a whole bunch of faithfulness that goes on before we see and experience and enjoy the fruit. And likewise, Paul says to the church in Colossae, and he calls us we're to we're to live and walk with faithfulness, keep turning up, trust the process, and keep investing, keep walking in the light and the life of the gospel, keep walking in relationship with me. I wanted to point out four things that stop us. Four things that stop us from walking with faithfulness really quickly. Firstly, disobedience. Sometimes we just don't want to follow the process. You know, it's just like, no, I'm not gonna do that. That's hard, I'm not doing that. I'm out. It's too hard. And we so we just say, well, I'm just gonna create my own narrative or I'm just gonna disobey. The second reason is that they're four disses, just so you know. Distraction. Distraction. We live in a distracted age. We live in an age where where there are so many things that are calling for our time and calling for our attention. There are so many good things that call for our time and attention for our kids, for you parents, let me say, there are a whole bunch of good things calling for our kids time and attention. But it may not be the faithful thing. It may not be the right thing. We need to be careful that we don't just get distracted from being faithful. Thirdly, discouragement. That's why I think Paul says, remember, in the context of a Roman Empire where where the Christians are just this fringe weird group, it'd be so easy to get discouraged. He says, be patient, endure, don't get discouraged. Because it's so easy, I find, to get impatient. We live in an instant gratification world. Where is it, God? What why why am I not seeing the fruit? I'm turning up, I'm doing the thing, I'm I'm trusting you, I'm trusting the process. Where's the fruit? Where are you, God? It's so easy just to drop out because we get discouraged. So I want to say a couple of things. Firstly, there are things happening in us that often we can't see. As we walk faithfully, as we keep turning up, we keep trusting, we keep walking faithfully before God and with others, sometimes we can't actually see what's going in. You know, as I was I was doing the the the marathon training, I had no idea how much work I was putting into my muscles and into my heart and into my brain. And sometimes we just don't understand actually the work that the Spirit is doing in us. That's the first thing. The second thing is we need a Paul in our life. We need people in our life who can say, keep going. I'm reminding you, God is good. I'm reminding you of the journey that you're on. I can see that there is good things. We all need pauls in our life that are able to encourage. Put courage into us. And the fourth D is discomfort. Sometimes it's just uncomfortable. Sometimes we actually need to go through pain. Sometimes we, you know, I I often think of the motto, you know, people say no pain, no gain. Well, there's another motto which is just no pain, no pain. Um, and I think a whole bunch of us kind of go, yeah, that I'm going with that one. Discomfort. But that is the discipleship journey. Discipleship comes from discipline, and sometimes we need to discipline our minds and our bodies. Dallas Willard, in his book, The Greater Mission, says this it's an invitation and a challenge. The greatest issue facing the world today with all its heartbreaking needs is whether those who, by profession or culture, are identified as Christians will become disciples, students, apprentices, practice, practitioners of Jesus Christ. We are called to live a life of discipleship, a life of faithfulness, even when it doesn't feel like it's working. And that's why we need to hold on to this final statement. As Paul encourages the church in Colossae, as he encourages us, faithfulness to Christ will and must lead to fruitfulness. Paul celebrates the fact, firstly, that the gospel is bearing fruit in their life. He says, I can see the faith, I can see the hope, and I can see the love that is in your life. It is bearing good fruit. He is all he can also stand and say, the gospel is bearing good fruit throughout the world. The gospel, the good news of Jesus, that God has come down, he is reconciling us to himself, that he has sent his spirit to fill us and to move us. It will, it must bear good fruit. If you want to know if you're growing, if you want to know if you're maturing, then look to the fruit that matters. I reckon sometimes we get fixed on the wrong fruit. We get fixed on the external things, we get fixed on things that kind of feel good for us, but perhaps they're not the deeper things. If you want to know if you're maturing and growing, church, then look to Paul's list of fruits. The fruits of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. These are the things that take time, that they, and they're not always the obvious things, but they are the fruit. Paul says that there is love, there is hope, there is faith that is working its way out. And he goes on to say, I pray that you'll continue to know wisdom, that you'll continue to know understanding, that you continue to do good works, works, that you continue to know the knowledge of God. As we walk faithfully, Paul says, and as he encourages the church, there will be fruit. Perhaps we need to realign our hopes. Perhaps we need to recenter what our expectations are, what fruit we are looking for. Maybe that's the journey for us here today. Some of you today, perhaps we're looking at the wrong fruit. But we can trust that God will do a work in us as we faithfully walk before Him. I've been studying Baptist distinctives at Whitley College as I'm doing my ordination um training. Uh I did it this the first six months of the year, and I was uh I was introduced to the story of Adonairam Judson, a Baptist missionary who was sent to Burma or what we now call Myanmar. An incredible story of faithfulness and suffering and pain. As he arrived there in Burma, uh in the uh the eight, it was a 19th century, he was confronted with sickness, persecution, he was confronted by two years, almost two years imprisonment in a in the most brutal context. He lost two wives and children to sickness, and he served faithfully for 40 years. He didn't see his first convert until six years after arriving. Six whole years of faithfully serving with no exterior fruit to his first convert. At the end of his life, he got to celebrate the translation of the Bible, and he also wrote a dictionary for others who were coming behind him. Do you know how many he was a Baptist missionary? Do you know how many Baptists are now in Myanmar? 1.5 to 2 million Baptists. Do you reckon he had any idea that even at the end of his life, we could even comprehend 1.5 to 2 million followers of Jesus within the Baptist tradition? Sometimes we have no idea, no idea of the fruit that will come from a faithful life. God calls us to walk faithfully before Him, trust the process, keep walking, and the good news is the task has already been done. When Jesus hung on that cross and said, It is finished, we need to understand that it is finished. As Paul says, I pray that you will come into a greater knowledge of God's grace. We are all invited into a place of grace. I want you to hear this as I land this. I want you to hear that this is not about striving. This is not about religion. This is not about earning your salvation. This is about living and embracing the grace of God, the invitation of relationship. And as we walk in relationship with God, as we enjoy grace in him, there is something about the gift of the Spirit that works in us as we keep turning up and just saying, God, I trust you. There is something about his grace in us that does the work. Praise God. We just trust him, trust his grace, trust his goodness, trust his kindness, and allow him, like good soil, to do the work in us. I uh I love music. We're a family that loves music. We love playing music. Every time we get in the car with the kids, it's dad, can we put on some music? Uh we we enjoy when we do long trips, we do music education education classes uh on long trips, and so we'll just take the kids through an era or an artist and go, kids, now we're going to educate you on Billy Joel. Uh here we go. We we love music. I love music. If I ever cry, usually music is is there somewhere. You know, you know, particularly movies. Anyone else like you know, you're fine until the music starts and it's oh my goodness. I love music. I play guitar, I tried to play the piano, but I didn't have the patience or the endurance to learn. I wish I did. But if there's one instrument that I'd love to play, it'd be the violin. Anyone else? Anyone else love the violin? I love the violin. Can you imagine if you decided to learn the violin? You know, like any instrument, the violin begins as an exercise of patience. The first sounds are tentative, often harsh, each note revealing how far intention is from execution. Fingers fumble for placement, the bow wavers, and even simple melodies feel distance. Progress is slow and discouraging, perhaps even excruciating if you are a parent of a child who is learning how to play violin. With time, repetition builds familiarity. Muscles remember what the mind once struggled to direct, scales become less mechanical and more expressive, and pieces begin to resemble music rather than scratching, rather than the scratching of a blackboard. Mistakes remain, but they no longer define the experience. Instead, they guide improvement. Eventually, the violin transforms from an object of challenge into a voice. Technique becomes instinctive, allowing emotion to lead. The player no longer thinks about each movement but feels the music as it unfolds. There is freedom, a sense of connection between player and instrument that makes practice feel like exploration rather than obligation. The journey from frustration and patience to joy is gradual, marked by persistence. But in the end, the reward is not just skill, but the ability to create something that brings joy and life to a room or to a soul. Enjoy. Fruitfulness will come from a faithful life. I wonder what your next step is on your journey of faithfulness. Where is your hope anchored? Where is your focus? Where are you heading? I reckon we could, as we go around the room, we'd all get different answers depending on what we're currently walking through. But I wonder whether some of us here are just walking through a season of perhaps disobedience or discouragement, despair, disappointment. And I think this morning is an invitation once again to lift our eyes and to remind ourselves of why we're called to be faithful. Because as we walk in faithfulness, there is life. There is life in Christ. In a moment we're going to worship, we're going to sing. And I'm going to invite the ministry team and the pastoral team to calm down and be present. And I'd love to pray, create space for ministry and prayer. To take a step and say, Yeah, that's me. I'm feeling discouraged right now. I'm finding it hard right now. I need to be reminded again of why I am walking faithfully with Jesus. I need my hope to be lifted again. The hardest kilometer in running is the first one. I find it asked Megan. The amount of times I've said, I'm going for a run, I've got my gear on, I run out, and then three minutes later I walk through the door and say, it's not in me today. The first kilometer, that first step is often the hardest step. And perhaps, again, it's just for you taking that first step again and saying, I'm stepping out, I'm choosing, I need my poor, I need people to come and encourage me, I need prayer, I need encouragement. We're going to create space for that this morning. I wonder whether we can stand. And I invite the ministry team just to come down to the front and our pastoral team to be available. If we can be just available, that would be great. And I'm going to pray for us. Just invite the Spirit of God to come and minister to us. Come on, I just invite us just to cross this room. Bow our heads, just close our eyes, and just become aware of your inner world, your own journey right now, what you're walking through. Maybe do a quick audit. What are you hoping for? What are you focused on? What are you faithful to right now? The challenges in your world. The vision, the hope of the gospel in our lives, Lord God. Spirit, I pray right now that you would minister to us. As we worship, as we sing, as we pray, as we cry out, as we move forward, as we as we receive prayer, Lord God, in our different responses, Lord God, would you would you pour out your grace afresh on us, or at your grace? Or at your grace afraid. As we sing out, as we worship, as much lift up our eyes, lift up our heart. If you are in that place, it might be significant, it might be simple. You're wanting encouragement today. Allow the team to minister to you to bless you and encourage you. Just come forward as we worship as we say. Come. Step forward. The first step is the hardest step, but come and receive prayer right.