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Good morning, everyone. Today is a new day, and also we begin a new week. In Jesus' name, now we start today's worship. The reason we gather in this altar is that we all want to kiss the Son, Jesus Christ. This is our only sanctuary. These days, you heard the wars, killing people. High temperature that kills people and mostly elderly. And yes, sudden flooding that kills young campers. Where do we go? Where do we hide? Psalm 2:1-2 says, why do the nations rage and the people plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord. And the anointed. But we do not want the kings who do evils. As Psalm 2:11-12 says, Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with Trembling, rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him. Unquote. This is God's warning to all who do evils and the blessings for all who come to kiss the Son. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, you saw all that are happening in the world. You know we are weak and helpless, but you are merciful, righteous, and almighty. Today we come before you to kiss your Son, Jesus Christ. Have mercy on us. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

A lot of kissing so far in our service. Thank you for that. Now let's stand up and worship together. We're gonna start with an old, old hymn, Holy, Holy, Holy. I said in the letter to everybody, if you like hymns, show up on time. So look, we got everybody here.

Holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty. Early in the morning, our song shall rise to thee. Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty. God in three persons, Blessed Trinity. Holy, holy, holy, all the saints adore thee, casting down their golden crowns around the blessed King. Cherubim and seraphim falling down before thee, who was and is and evermore shall be. Holy, holy, holy, though the darkness hide thee, though the eye of sinful man thy glory may not see, Holy, Thou art holy. There is none beside Thee. Perfect in power, in love, and purity. Holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty. All Thy works shall praise Thy name. In earth and sky and sea. Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty, God in three persons, Blessed Trinity. Crown him with many crowns, the Lamb upon his throne. Harcourt, the lovely anthem drones on music. At Baptist Home, dignify my soul and sing of him who died for thee and reigneth as thy matchless king through all eternity. Crown him the Lord of life, O triumph o'er the grave., and rose victorious in the strife for those he came to save. His glories now we sing, who died and rose up high, who died eternal life to bring, and lives that death may die. Crown him Lord of love. Behold his hands and side, rich wounds yet visible above, and body glorified. All angels in the sky can fully bear that sight. But downward bends the burning light that must glory so bright. Crowned in the Lord of Mers, the potentate of time, creator of the rolling seas and of all place sublime, Ruler, Redeemer, hell, for thou hast died for me. Thy praise shall never, never fail throughout eternity. When peace like a river turneth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll, Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say, "It is well, it is well with my soul." It is well with my soul. It is well It is well with my soul. My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought! My sin not in part, but the whole is nailed to the cross, and I'm born fear it no more. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul. It is well with my soul. It is well, it is well with my soul. And Lord, haste the day when the faith shall be sight, the clouds be rolled back as a scroll, the trump shall resound and the Lord shall descend, even so. It is well with my soul. It is well with my soul. It is well, it is well with my soul. It is well with my soul. It is well, it is well with my soul.

Now we'll sing a little bit of a newer song.

I don't know about tomorrow. I just live from day to day. I don't borrow from his sunshine, for I know it will turn to gray. I don't worry o'er the future, for I know my Jesus said, And today I'll walk beside him, for he knows what is ahead. Many things about tomorrow I don't seek to understand, but I know who holds tomorrow, and I know who holds my hand. Every step is getting brighter as the golden stairs I climb. Every burden's getting lighter. Every cloud is silver light. There the sun is always shining. There no tear will dim the eye. At the ending of the rainbow, where the mountains touch the sky. Many things about tomorrow I don't see 'til I'm there.

Thanks, Joey, for all that singing out. It's beautiful to hear your voices. Now we're going to move around a little bit for this one. Are we ready?

I danced in the morning when the world begun. I danced in the moon and the stars and the sun. And I came down from heaven and I danced on the earth. At Bethlehem I had my birth. Dance then, wherever you may be, I am the Lord of the dance, said he. I'll lead you all, wherever you may be, I will lead you all in the dance, said he. I danced for the scribe and the Pharisee, but they would not dance and they wouldn't follow me. And I danced for the fishermen, for James and for John, they came with with me, and the dance went on. Dance then, wherever you may be. I am the Lord of the dance, said he. I'll lead you all, wherever you may be. I will lead you all in the dance, said he. I danced on the Sabbath, and I cured the lame. The holy people, they said it was to shame. They whipped and they stripped and they hung me high. They left me there on a cross to die. Dance then, wherever you may be. I am the Lord of the dance, said he. I'll lead you all wherever you may be. I will lead you all in the dance, said he. I danced on a Friday when the sky turned black. It's hard to dance with the devil, on your back. They buried my body and they thought I'd gone, but I am the dance and I still go on. Dance then, wherever you may be. I am the Lord of the dance, said he. I'll lead you all in olam olamim. I will lead you all in the dance, said he. They cut me down and I lift up high, for I am the life that will never, never die. I'll live in you if you live in me. I am the Lord of the dance, said he. Dance then, wherever you may be. I am the Lord of the dance, said he. I'll lead you all wherever you may be. I will lead you all in the dance. Dance on, wherever you may be. I am the Lord of the dance, said he. I'll lead you all, wherever you may be. I will lead you all in the dance, said he.

Dear Lord, we don't usually think of it that way, but life is a dance, and we're glad to know that you're with us and that you are Lord, Lord of Lords and King of Kings. Though we cannot see you, we can see you everywhere. So thank you for this time together. I pray we can all learn the steps for that dance someday and dance. We pray in Jesus' name. Remain standing. Let's greet each other, and then we'll hear from Mandy.

Oh, okay. Thank you, Pastor.

Good morning, brother and sister. Um, Pastor Paul and asked me to share what it's like to become a grandmother. I feel really blessed to become a grandmother last year, not only one, but twice. And my granddaughter just celebrate her first birthday last week, and my grandson currently is 7 months old. I feel really blessed, and I love them dearly. But I have to always remind myself that they are my grandchildren, not my children. I cannot go overboard. If God, with his blessing, allow me to live long enough to see my grandchildren grow up, like in the Bible, Deuteronomy say in chapter 6, 7 to 9, It said to impress them on your children and talk about them when you— sorry— when you up and walk with them along the road, when you lay down and when you get up, write them of your house and your gates and your doorframe. I plan to I plan to share with them— sorry, sorry— I plan to share with them when they grow up the most meaningful story of my life, what Jesus have been done in my life. When we have to have a chance to see them as they grow up, like visit them, or walk or talk to them or read them nighttime story, I intend to prepare the opportunity to share with them about the story, the most meaningful story about Jesus' love to them and the good, the funny, the bad, and the hard time that that as well, that God have been— I have been experiencing God's grace in my life. I will tell them how God, Lord Jesus, pour out his blessing to my family. I will tell them these stories so that they will know God and learn to love God of all their heart, soul, strength, and mind. I hope they will grow up in spiritual maturity and walk with God for the next generation to come to see God's greatness. I will try to pursue them to love God and to bring them to Jesus as I did to my husband and my 3 children many years ago. Thank you for listening to my story. Apa kuen maat.

Thank you.

Please all rise and let us read the scripture together. You have done well to share with me in my present difficulty. You Philippines were the only ones who sent me supplies, to which I first gave you the good news and then traveled on. No other church did this. The gifts you sent me are a sweet smell sacrifice. That's acceptable in Japan. I'm not saying this because I want a gift from you. Rather, I want you to receive a reward for that. God will supply all your needs and fundaments, which have been given us in Christ Jesus. Please be seated.

Thank you, Michael and Mandy. So Philippians 4, this is our last week here, and we see this, how it— the purpose of the letter of Philippians really is a long thank you note. He's thankful for what the Philippians have done for him, which he says, you're the only church. What did they do that that was different from every other church. What they did was they gave to Paul even after they had left their town. So there had been plenty of offerings given to Paul while he was still among them, but now he had moved on to another city, and they had sent— and then actually you heard how he ended up in prison. They sent money even after he had left them. So that was very unusual. And he would— just to summarize what the scripture says, can do so succinctly here— he praises what they've done, he calls them out for them, the unique way that they served him and said this is pleasing to God, and then he makes a promise: God will supply all your needs. Why did he have to do that? Because if they gave money away, that means they had less left behind, right? So perhaps they would be concerned about, you know, where is it going to come from? So this is my focus today. I'm really concerned about this promise. He says, I didn't want to receive this gift, but I want God to bless you. And so that is the question, is will God really supply our needs as we give? And we've heard these verses over and over. I just wanted to touch on a couple of other scriptures that are commonly referenced in regard to the attitude that Christians are supposed to have in our giving. Honor the Lord with your wealth and the best part of everything you produce. Then he will fill your barns with grain and your vats will overflow with good wine. That's one, and that's certainly a good attitude to have. This one you'll see printed on offering envelopes in the old days when they used to have offering envelopes. Envelopes. If you ever visit another church, you'll see it'll have this: bring all the tithes into the storehouse so there will be enough food in my temple. And if you do, says the Lord, I will pour out a blessing so great you won't have room, you won't have enough room to take it in. Malachi 3. And then in the New Testament, Paul's— not Paul, Jesus says something similar. He says when you give, your gift will be returned to you in full. Pressed down, shaken together to make room for more. And it's like if you have a jar of— I'm trying to think what would be the right kind of something you put in the jar. If you shake it together, you can find— or push it down, you can fill it up, right? If you go to the grocery store and you're— let's say you're buying something by the jar, you want to make sure it's really packed tight. So he's saying when you give, you'll be given in good measure pressed down, shaken together, and even running over. So this is the attitude that we are told to have, and we end up— oh, and then there's even one prophet where he says, if you don't, he says, what will happen to you if you don't give? He said through Haggai, why are you living in luxurious houses while my house lies in ruins? You have planted much but harvested little. You eat but are not satisfied. You drink and are still thirsty. You put on clothes and cannot keep warm. Your wages disappear as though you were putting them in pockets filled with holes. And maybe we should just end the message here and say, okay, we're raising money to build a new church building in the back here, and you know, rah-rah, and see what happens. But of course, that's not my goal today, not at all. I'm just asking the question, if we were to give so much, what would happen?. And I wanted to quote from our own Elder Shih, who said in the Chinese— I'm translating from the Chinese— when he introduced the offering in the Chinese service, he says something like, "If you don't understand what we're doing, just don't give." Right? Something like that. So this is our attitude in the church. We don't want people to give because they're supposed to. No, we want you to understand. So we're going to dig a little deeper with what is going on with the giving, because what— based on the verses that we've seen so far, we get the idea that we give something to God and then God gives it back to us. It's like this arrow comes first. We give, God gives back. That's the understood order. And however, what we'll see is it doesn't always work like that. In fact, it cannot work like that, because how do we have something in the first place? Now, if you look back at the story of Abraham and how he was— when he was still called Abram, he fought in a war, and he had to go collect Lot and had to fight some battles. And as he was on his way home, he stopped in what was now Jerusalem. And he made an offering to the priest there, Melchizedek, the king of Salem. And Melchizedek blessed him, saying, 'Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth, who defeated your enemies for you.' Then Abram gave Melchizedek a tenth of all the goods he had recovered. So here the giving is reversed, so it should be more like, more like this: this. So God gave them victory in this battle. And in the victories in the old days and battles, you recover a lot of goods, the spoils. Of course, a lot of them had been stolen from them in the first place, and he gave back. So it's really not Abraham is giving, he's giving back. And so this is the attitude. This is how our giving is power. We first have to receive, right? Point in order to get something before we can give. Now I want us to notice how Abram, called Abram in those days, where did he see God? Did God show up and give him swords that had been like the sword of right out of the sky? No. He had worked through the circumstances or intermediaries that helped him to defeat the enemies. And we don't know exactly what all these were. But we know that Abram got help from God in order to do the battle. So indirectly, God helped Abram, and Abram gave credit to God for doing it. Then when Abram wanted to give the money, what is he gonna do, throw it up in the air and then hope God will swoop down in a chariot and pick up the gold pieces? No, he gave the money also to agents or intermediaries, gave it to people, in this case case, it was Melchizedek, the king of Salem. He did not give it to king of Sodom. Remember, if you know the story, he had to discriminate. He had to discern— Abram did— to whom he should give that will be really representing God or that God would want him to give to. So this is the correct order. And in this little chart, we're gonna be revisiting this that you see right here. This is like the happy picture where God is giving to his people, and then we're giving back. But the giving is happening— it's kind of like the, you know, the clouds are going along and the water is being absorbed, and then it's raining, and then it's going into the lakes. And it's a cycle. It's like a whole ecosystem of giving and flourishing that God has designed. And when it works, it works. And we see it, of course, in many other stories. And I'll just give one other example, and that is where Jacob, when he is fleeing from his brother Esau, and he lays down on the stone and he has a dream and he sees a stairway to heaven, and then he makes this vow. He says, if God will indeed be with me and protect me while he's away from home and provide me with food and clothing, and if I safely return, then the Lord will certainly be my God, and I will present to God I will give God a tenth of everything he gives to me. So here, Jacob first wanted to— he hadn't a penny on him. He just had the shirt on his back when he left. But he promised that when he did receive, he would give a tenth. So that is where we get this chart. And that is why you may have heard the saying, you can't outgive God. He continues— he gives to us, we give back, and then he refills us. Us in a never-ending cycle. Now, we've seen the number 10% a couple of times in these two records, but when we get to the New Testament, we don't see that really done as a formula anymore. Instead, where Paul addresses the issue, he tells us— makes an example of a farmer who plants a few seeds. What does he get? A small crop, but he He who plants generously gets a generous crop. You must decide in your own heart how much to give, and don't give reluctantly or in response to pressure, for God loves a person who gives cheerfully. So that is— the rule is there isn't a rule, and that it's much more about what's going on in our hearts. And as we see from this chart, we receive from various intermediaries not only the church. There's other ways of giving, and there's other destinations that we might give our giving. We could give to a church, a parachurch ministry, a missions, a missionary, or someone that, that we know who's in trouble. So there's all kinds. And Jesus validated this in Matthew 25, which I'm sure you've all read very recently. And this is cast in when he's judging the goats and the sheep. He says the righteous ones will repose The people of God will reply, Lord, when did we ever see you hungry or feed you? When did we see you thirsty and give you something to drink? Or a stranger and show you hospitality? Or naked and give you clothing? When did we ever see you sick or in prison and visit you? And the King will say, I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these, my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me. So God is validating creating this kind of chart that we're looking at here, this cycle or this ecosystem. Now I will point out two things in this verse that sometimes it gets misunderstood, and that is first that he's saying, "When you do this for my brothers and sisters," and you have to decide or discern who the brothers and sisters are and if that applies to everybody or, or who you want to be giving to. And the other is that there's— it seems to include these physical benefits benefits as well as spiritual benefits. But clearly this is not only in the church. Church is one intermediary and there's a bunch of others. So here's the beautiful design. Now I wanted to go to a couple of— to look at what goes wrong. So it's like if you study medicine and you study how the body works, but then you have to study the diseases, right? Because things are always going to go wrong before you could fix them. So what could go wrong with this picture? Well, the first thing I wanted to look at is the story of Ruth. And I know we've all probably heard the story of Ruth and how she was penniless and went with her mother-in-law Naomi. They went back to Egypt— to Egypt— to Israel, and they didn't have anything, so they went to glean. Ruth went to glean in the fields, and as the harvesters would come through, they had a law that would allow the poor people could pick up the little little bits of grain that were left in the field. Well, Ruth went to work, and Boaz, the landowner there, noticed her, and he ordered his young men, saying, "When she gathers grain behind you, pull out some of the heads of barley, take some of the good stuff, and drop it on the ground on purpose so she can pick it up." It's like, let her do the work, but you can make it easier for her so she'll get more than you unusual. And that's exactly what happened. Ruth gathered barley there all day, and when she beat out the grain, when she threshed it, it was a basketful. Now, have you ever done gleaning in someone's field all day as a poor person in ancient Israel? You probably haven't, but if you had, you would know that those harvesters don't leave anything behind. So you're lucky to get a few pieces here and a few pieces there, and if you work all day, You might have a handful, enough to eat, but you're not gonna have a basketful. That never happens. But Ruth didn't know. This is her first day out there in the field, and she just like kind of whistling on her way home with this big basket of grain, thinking that was normal and not realizing what Boaz had done. She carried it back to her mother-in-law Naomi, and Naomi takes one look at the basket.

She's like, where did you gather all this grain today?

She knew something was, something was up because that never happened in her experience. So Naomi knew right away that God was behind this simple event, that she was able to gather more than was expected. Now this, this happened to me actually once when I— our company, when we started our company in China, it was hard going and we worked for years without much to show for for it. But then one year we just had this big windfall, which I won't bore you with the details. The youth group heard a little bit about it. And suddenly our coffers were full. We made a lot of money in one year. And I realized we had been just working the same amount as before, but we had also been praying specifically for this one thing that had been going on. And I recognized that that was like Boaz. It was like God leaving extra grain. And because we saw it that way, it changed the kind of— it helped the attitude that we had towards receiving the grain. And of course, you can see what happens in Ruth's life. Now, there's another story about a guy that's not as famous as Ruth. His name is Nabal. And if you know Hebrew, Nabal means fool in, in Hebrew. And you wonder how a man could have a name like fool, but I suppose it was probably not the name his mother gave him. It was his nickname. Nabal was a wealthy man near Carmel who owned 3,000 sheep and 1,000 goats, but he was crude and mean. Now David, when David heard that Nabal was shearing his sheep— this is the time when David wasn't king yet. He was, he was trying to— he had like 600 men with him and they were getting, preparing to take more territory, but they were— he was not king yet. When David heard Nabal was shearing his sheep, he sent his men to to him saying, "Peace. Well, while your shepherds stayed among us in Carmel, we never harmed them and nothing was ever stolen from them." So they kind of protected Nabal's sheep and his men. "Please share any provisions you might have with us and with your friend David." So from David's point of view, he had been giving services to Nabal and his big business operation, but what did Nabal What do you think? Who is this David? He's not at all interested in giving anything. And so there— now you might think this is like a shakedown or something, but if you look at the history and the stories, you'll see that David actually was doing good services, but he didn't recognize that. He didn't acknowledge that he had received something. Therefore, he didn't have an attitude of giving. So that's the other thing that can go wrong. Well, fortunately, Nabal's wife Abigail saw David, quickly got off her donkey, bowed low, and said, "Nabal's a fool. I never even saw the men you sent. Now here's a present." So she saves the day by bringing— because otherwise David would have— might have done something worse. So that's a second case where something goes wrong when— if we're like Nabal and we don't recognize the help we're getting. Sometimes it's direct or indirect. There's indirect ways that God helps us. And the third example is a story where Jesus tells of a rich man who had a fertile farm that produced fine crops. And he said to himself, what should I do? I don't have room for all my crops. Now, isn't this a problem you would like to have? So can you sympathize? What would you do if you had plenty of— oh, I got an extra car, I've got extra, got extra cash, I got a big bonus. What am I gonna do with it? So what would you do? What's your thought process when you heard that you got a big bonus this year, more than you needed, and all your budgets, everything's taken care of? Would you be thinking about, hmm, maybe I need to replace my car, maybe I need to replace my clothing, my— who knows what you might be thinking. But what is this man thinking? Well, just like we might have. And he says, "I know, I'll tear down my barns and I'll build bigger ones. Then I'll have room enough to store all my wheat and other goods, and I can sit back and say to myself, 'My friend, you have stored enough away for years to come. Now take it easy, eat, drink, and be merry.'" So that is perhaps what a lot of— you know, the American dream has been realized. What's left? So this is what he does. But then Jesus says, you know what's coming, don't you? But God said to him, you fool, you're just like Nabal. You will die this very night. Then who will get everything you worked for? Yes, a person is a fool to store up earthly wealth but not have a rich relationship with God. So this man in the story had just totally forgotten about what's God's purpose. Why would God give you this fertile land? Why would he bless your crops? Is it just for you? It's like when God blessed Abram, he said, you— through you I want to bless all nations. It's not just for your nation. And so through us, or through this man, he might have blessed many, but he was not willing. And we see that in other parables. For example, on this little snippet where a servant servant with 2 bags of silver went out to work and earned 2 more. But the servant who received the 1 bag of silver, he just dug a hole in the ground and hid his master's money. So that's not the attitude that we want to have. Now I want to— before I finish, there's a couple of key pieces of this puzzle that we can apply to make it work properly. And the first one is we've got to realize not only discerning, you know, are we receiving something from God and who can we bless that will also help God. But what happens when we— when the resources are parked with us? And I want to go to the book of Philemon where we see that the first key is that it's voluntary, that we read early. God loves a cheerful giver. He's not going to beat it out of us. He's not going to tax it out of us like the government does. It's all up to us. Us, which is really remarkable if you think about it. And I want to use the story of Philemon where Paul is asking Philemon for a favor as a metaphor for God asking us to give. And he— I'm excerpting here— Paul asked Philemon, I'm boldly asking a favor of you. I could demand it, but because of our love, I prefer simply to ask you. And the request show kindness to Onesimus. Onesimus was another believer, a little brother, if you will. Now, if you remember the story of Philemon, you'd probably imagine Philemon's response is, anybody else, please, not Onesimus. He didn't want to give to Onesimus. That was his runaway slave. So Philemon was a slave owner. Onesimus was a runaway slave and had stolen from from him. So that's the last person he wants to show kindness to. And yet this is one that Paul asks him. But he said— he didn't order him. He said, I didn't want to do anything without your consent. I wanted you to help because you were willing, not because you were forced. Now how many of you that have been going to WCC for however many years, have you ever been forced to give? Or probably not any— well, I can think of a couple of churches where they pretty much force you to give, but those— not here. It's voluntary, entirely voluntary. And so Paul then addresses in the book of Philemon this question, but if I give, I'll have nothing left, right? And in this case, Philemon had been stolen. He had goods stolen from him. So Paul goes on to say, if he's wronged you in any way, or owes you anything, charge it to me. I, Paul, write this with my own hand. I will repay it. Now, if you remember, Paul was in prison when he's writing this, and he's facing a death sentence, and he may never see Philemon again. But how could he repay it? He can repay it through intermediaries. God can repay it. And so that is the promise that we heard at the beginning of this message, that God stands behind the giving, that we cannot outgive give God, that he is there to fill in if necessary. But then he goes on to, to say with this conclusion, and I won't mention that you owe me your very own soul. What is more worth more than our soul? And so he's reminding us that we have life, and if we have life, what more do we need? So the final, the final key I wanted to to mention here in this picture is whether we want to do something for show or do it in secret. And the key scripture there is when— in Matthew, when Jesus is on the Sermon on the Mount, he criticizes some of those in the church who were giving hypocritically and showing off. And they would only give if they could put their name on it or if they could get some kind of credit.

Private.

He says, I tell you the truth, that's all the reward they will ever get. But when you give to someone in need, give your gifts in private, and your Father who sees everything will reward you. And so this is kind of a test of, you know, is our giving truly voluntary and truly sincere? So I think we've all experienced that I know sometimes when I was first married, I didn't want to wash the dishes unless my wife was in the room and could hear the clattering of the dishes. If she was away somewhere and I washed them, no credit in that, right? Because she wouldn't maybe even notice. Actually, she's very observant. She notices everything. Is she here?

There she is.

I used to make a point of trying to embarrass my wife with every meal. Message, but I stopped doing that, right, honey? Instead, I'll embarrass my son and my daughter-in-law who are here visiting in the very back row. Hi, Eber. Would you stand up? Eber and— it's not embarrassing? Yeah, stand up, Eber. And Caitlin, my daughter-in-law. Are any of our grandchildren there with you at this moment? No?

Okay.

Thank you for coming. They've come all the away from Chicago. We all went to the beach. I don't know if you can tell, I got a little bit of sun this week. And thank you for coming. And it's my granddaughter Esther's second birthday today, so if you see her, you can say hello. All right, let us, let us pray. Father, we are thankful for so much, for how you set up this whole ecosystem, the lifestyle of receiving from you as children. And then as we gain and grow up, we learn to give. And we, as we give, we always have enough more to, and to discover how many ways you give. I ask, Father, for all the people in this room that we learn to just to, that you reveal to us all the ways that you have helped us, that how you've protected us, and how you are sustaining us sustaining us. And I, I just pray that as you do reveal to us the ways that you are there with us, that we will just be joyful and thankful. And secondly, I ask, Father, that you will help us all to discern those places and intermediaries, those people who we can bless with whatever way, whether it's with our presence or resources or however hospitality, however that is, to open up those opportunities and to give us that willingness to work on our heart. And as we do so, to just feel how you've designed us to feel a great sense of satisfaction and glory that we can give to you for how you've made your creation. We pray these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Okay, stand up. Let's sing one more song. It's actually a repeat.

Holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty. Holy in the morning, our song shall rise to thee. Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty, God in three persons, blessed Trinity. Holy, holy, holy, all the saints adore thee, casting down their golden crowns upon the dusty sea. Cherubim and seraphim bow and wonder before thee, Who was and is and evermore shall be. Holy, holy, holy, though the darkness fight thee, though the eye of serpents roam, thy glory may not cease. Holy, thou art holy, there is none beside thee, perfect in power, in love and purity. Holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty. All thy works shall praise thy name in earth and sky and sea. Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty, God in three persons, Blessed Trinity.

We just have a few announcements, and if you would like to see any details announcements, please go to our website, WCEC. Um, so I'd like to give a warm welcome to the younger Condrell family. Thank you for joining us here at the church. Do we have any other new members— or, sorry, new attendees today? All right, go ahead and see the announcement slide.

Excellent.

All right, our Salt and Light Fellowship Fellowship is, uh, July 26th at the lounge here at the church at 4 PM. Awana and VBS registration end today, so if you care to register any of the kids, you would do that in the lobby down here in the front of the church. The VBS True North will start on August 28th to— or sorry, July 28th to August 1st. They still need volunteers, so if you're willing to provide, uh, some time to that ministry please see Qing Li. There's a going away party for the Hui family at Paul Condrell's house August 16th at 5:00 PM. There is a sign-up link, so if you would go to the website, you can get the sign-up link, or you can contact Paul, Stacy, and Wendy. Thank you. So yes, please see any of the bulletin or the website for future details.

All right, please stand for the doxology.— here below. Praise him above, ye heavenly host. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.

So our benediction comes from Rome— from Romans 15, where Paul says, may the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another in accord with Christ Jesus that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Go in peace to love and serve him.