0:07 Good morning RLCF. It's a real joy to to be here. And so for those of you don't know me, my name is WinHai. I'm one of the members of NCCF in in California. And this is my second singles discipleship conference. I never came 0:20 out here when I was single, but God was very kind to me and he's given me a chance to come here now after after marriage. And so I wanted to share encouragement with everyone along the theme of this year's conference, which is 0:32 finding contentment in Christ alone. And I was really encouraged by our song of praise and and singing uh last night. It was just a wonderful time of singing and just giving all the glory to God and it was just a reminder to me, Lord, yes, 0:48 you are worthy for me to find contentment in you alone. And I think one of the good hymns that summarizes what it means to find contentment in God alone is this song from A.B. Simpson and called himself. We actually read one of his articles in the 1:03 in the sessions this week. And I'll just read the first verses of the song. What does it mean to find contentment in Christ alone? And it goes like this. Once it was the blessing, now it is the Lord. Once it was the feeling, 1:19 now it is his word. Once his gift I wanted, now the giver own. Once I sought for healing, now himself alone. And I love that song because it's it's a song that shows a a growth in the person. There's a once and then there's a now. Once it was the 1:37 blessing and then now it is the Lord. And for me, I think of kids for example. Um use a personal example in my life. I have kids and sometimes I give them a toy. And I give them a toy and they're young kids what they'll say is, well, thanks 1:50 dad for the toy and then they'll run away to the room and and play with it. But if my kids get a little bit older, my hope would be that if I give them a toy, they'd "Hey, Dad, thanks for the toy. Would you like to come play with me uh 2:01 and play with this toy with me?" That would be a mark of a more mature uh son. And so, that's what I see in this song is that transition from once being um uh more of a childish approach, but now now it's becoming more of a attitude of 2:15 an adult. And so, I want to share some ways in which practically, what does it mean to find contentment in Christ alone? What does it look like? Now, I can't say that this is all a reality in my life just yet, but I want to say these things with 2:29 faith, faith that God will make these things a reality in my life. So, practically, what does it mean to find contentment in Christ alone? So, here's uh number one. I can find contentment in Christ alone because he died for me. 2:42 And therefore, I will never doubt his love for me. So, that's the practical application. If I believe that Jesus, you alone are all I need, I'll be content content with you alone, then Lord, I never have to doubt your love for me. And so, I want to ask 2:56 the tech team, if you don't mind, maybe pull up that first picture that I I sent. And I just want to ask everyone a very a simple question. Okay? So, tech team, you can just pull up that picture. And the question is, when you wake up in 3:11 the morning, how do you think God is uh looking at you? Okay? And what you see there are three choices. Okay? And I want you to see which of these choices best reflects how you think God looks at you. So, give the tech team a second and we can pull 3:26 it up. Oh, thank you so much. Okay. 3:49 All right. So, these are the three choices, okay? So, starting from the left, got choice one. Oh, can you guys see it? Oh, no. Yeah, okay. Oh, I can see it. >> [laughter] >> I will wait. Okay. By the way, I do have to give props to 4:02 the the tech team. Have you ever worked on technology live? It's extremely difficult and there's a lot of pressure. So, anyways, thank you, tech team. I know it's not easy, but but thank you. Okay. Okay, you guys can see it now? Okay, 4:21 great. Okay, thank you. >> [laughter] >> All right. So, we got three choices here, okay? On the left-hand side, you have a very mad, you know, smiley face. And then in the middle, you don't have a mad smiley face, but it's more of a 4:33 frown. Can't say the person's happy, but it's a little bit of a frown. And then on the right-hand side, it's a smile. So, my question is, when you wake up in the morning, which of these smiley faces do you think best reflects the way God is is looking 4:48 at you? And I'll share my personal testimony of this. This is something that I've I struggle with quite a bit. Often times I wake up in the morning and I have to deal with work and I'm a bit tired and I can't say that God is smiling at me. But 5:01 I also I can't say God is mad at me. I'm not aware of anything I've done wrong. But I always feel like maybe somewhere in the middle. God's not completely mad at me. Maybe he's got a little bit of a frown looking at me. And that's the way I would say is 5:12 my tendency when I wake up in the morning. That's how God um looks at me. But I want to say that that's not the way from scripture that we should wake up in the morning and think about how God uh looks at us. So, please turn with me to Ephesians 5:27 Okay, chapter 6. Ephesians uh chapter 6. And I want to share some things to encourage those who might be struggling with that same issue that I I struggle with. Ephesians chapter 6 and verse 16. And the context of this is talking about 5:45 the armor of God. And when I think of armor of God, at least for us, the I think about VBS. Okay, so remember I think a couple years ago for VBS we did uh the armor of God series and the kids sang a song about the different parts of the armor. And 5:59 it's easy to think, "Hey, this is just a kids thing. It's just something for the VBS kids." But if you look at the context, it's actually not meant for kids. This was meant for adults. This is for meant for the uh the believers in 6:10 the Ephesians church, okay? And look at Ephesians 6:16, what it says there. One of the pieces that's really important. It says this, "In addition to all, taking up the shield of faith, with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the 6:28 evil one." So, to the mature believers in Ephesians and if Ephesus was a very mature church, Paul says to them, "Every day, what must you have? You must have this shield of faith." Why? Because there's these arrows that are going to 6:40 be uh shot at you. And those are the arrows which you keep saying, "God is angry with you. God's got that little frown at you." And so, unless we have this shield of faith, then it's easy for us to accept that and believe that. But 6:52 I don't believe that's the way God wants us to to live our lives with that that cloud of condemnation uh overheads. That's not God's will for our lives. And I just want to share what's one example of what the shield of faith looks like. 7:04 And the shield of faith I could say is all the promises of God's amazing uh love for us. And I'll just share just one. I'll just share just one just very simple example about his love for us. So, please turn with me just a couple of 7:16 chapters over to 2 Corinthians chapter 5 and verse uh 21. We heard this in the prayer earlier today. 2 Corinthians 5:21. "He made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we 7:35 might become the righteousness of God in him." And especially that first phrase, "He made him." So, God made Jesus, who knew no sin, to be sin on our behalf. I can't fully explain that verse, but the way I visual- visualize it is 7:50 something like this. So, imagine you're standing in front of a pool. And then imagine the yuckiest thing that you absolutely don't like. Okay, we don't have to get into details here, but like think about that for a second. Maybe 8:01 it's trash, maybe it's, you know, mud. I don't know, whatever it is, the yuckiest thing you can think of. And then the next thing I say is, "Jump." Jump into that pool. Okay, and then you have all that stuff, yucky stuff over 8:12 you. How would you feel? You feel like this is absolutely horrible. This is absolutely disgusting. And when I think of this phrase, "God made Jesus, who knew no sin, to be sin on our behalf." Something something like that. Something 8:23 like that image. I More and more I see God's holiness is something I just can't I can't comprehend. I can't I just comprehend just how pure and how holy he is. And yet, Jesus decided to jump inside a pool, so to speak, of sin. The yuckiest 8:39 thing that you would never want to touch. He jumped into that pool, and it just covered his entire body. That is something I think about when I think of this verse, "He made him who knew no sin, to be sin on our on our behalf." 8:50 And so, you see the tremendous love that Christ had to do something like that. He died on the cross, yes, but this is another aspect of the cross, where he took on that sin, and he jumped into that pool full of sin. And for me, I was just thinking, "Lord, 9:03 you did this for me. How could I doubt your love for me? How could I wake up in the morning and think that you have that frown on your face? Lord, you love me so much. How could I doubt your love?" And so, those are those are thoughts, 9:16 for example, that I that I think of, which help encourage me whenever I feel that cloud of condemnation over my head. And I believe that this is such an important foundation we must have in our Christian life. Some people might say, 9:26 "Well, this is the love of God. This is meant for beginner Christians." Well, I would say, "No. This is the love of God is something that all believers need. Even the mature believers need to have that." Why? Because unless we have and 9:37 believe that love of God in our lives, we cannot finish God's plan for our lives. And I want to show you that from Matthew uh chapter 25, if you will turn with me. Matthew chapter 25 and verses 14 to uh 30. This is the parable of the 9:53 talents. And I think a lot of you know the the story already, but I'll just summarize real quick. And so this is the story of a a person who a man who went on a trip and he had uh three slaves and he gave one slave five talents, the other two 10:08 talents, and the third one talent. And when he came back from the the trip, the one who had five talents earned five more, the one who got two earned two more, but the one who got one talent didn't do anything with with it at all. 10:20 Okay? And so the key question is why is it that the one person, okay, who got the one talent didn't do anything with it? Okay? And if you look at verse 24, here's the the reason. Matthew chapter 25 and verse 24. And it says this. 10:37 And the one also who had received the one talent came up and said, "Master, I knew you to be a hard man reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you scatter no seed. And I was afraid and went away and hid your talent in your ground. See, here 10:54 you have what is yours." So why did a talent that man who got one talent didn't do anything? Well, we see here his attitude towards the master. He thought the master was a hard man and he thought he was scared. He was scared of 11:05 his master. But if you think about the parable, why is it that this person who even got one talent, he really had no excuse to think that his master was a hard man. And here's one reason why. If you look at the margin of your Bible, 11:17 if you have it, it gives a definition for what a talent is. And a talent in my Bible says it's a worth about 15 years wages of a labor. 15 years of salary, okay, is one talent. So let's say a person earns $100,000 a year. 11:31 What is one talent? One talent is 1.5 million dollars. And so if somebody gave me 1.5 million dollars, I wouldn't say you're a hard man. I wouldn't say he's angry with me. But I say, "Wow, this person trusts me with with so much." And 11:43 so that's something I want to share here that if we have a wrong perception of God, God might have given us so much. He might have blessed us with so much. And yet we could have that thought, "Lord, you're angry with me. You're a hard 11:53 person." And then we won't do anything. And the really sad thing about this the story that this person, he got a lot from the Lord. Even though it was one talent, it was 1.5 million dollars. But yet he did not finish the plan that God 12:04 had for him because he doubted his love. So, dear brothers and sisters, I really want to encourage us if we find contentment in Christ alone, may that be true that we will never doubt his his love for us. So, that's the first thing 12:14 I want to share. The second thing I want to share is that I can find contentment in Christ alone because he will never leave me or forsake me. Therefore, I will not be discouraged. Um so, tech team, if you could put up the 12:28 the second picture real quick. This is a little picture from Pilgrim's Progress. And it talks about uh discouragement. And for those of you who've uh heard the story before, this is the time when uh Christian and Hopeful were uh walking on 12:42 the straight path and they took a they took a wrong turn. And then they were captured by this giant called Giant Despair. And they captured them and they threw them into this castle called uh Doubting Castle. And this is where they are right now. 12:55 Okay? And this is what discouragement looks like sometimes. It looks like a ca- it looks like a a castle. Looks like a a prison. And it can feel like that a lot. And I want to share this with especially the young people because 13:08 for sure we will definitely face disappointments in life. And it could be disappointments in in school, disappointments in in marriage, in work, etc. We will definitely face disappointments in life. But the question is, when we face those 13:19 disappointments, how do we deal with it? Are we stuck in this castle like Christian and Hopeful in this uh doubting castle? Or do we have faith through the belief in the Lord? And I'll just share my my personal example of 13:31 this. Like when I was single, I I definitely felt like a lot of disappointments. And I'll share especially in the area of marriage, that's where at least finding a wife, that's where I was felt a lot of disappointments. And I 13:42 think for a lot of you young people, I hope this can be an encouragement to you. I remember at the time when I was a single um different people would give different proposals to me. Like different sisters say, "Wanhai, why don't you look at this 13:52 person or consider this person?" And anytime I felt like, "Oh yeah, this person is something I could someone I could consider. Feel like this is a good fit." Every single time I said yes to someone, you know what the other person 14:01 said? They said no. >> [laughter] >> So, after a while, I was like, like guys, is there something on my is there something wrong with my face? Like is something in my teeth? Like tell me. Like what's what's going on? Like nobody 14:11 likes me. And so, I think one good thing I'll just say in passing is that it humbled me a lot for sure cuz you know, my mom said, "Hey, Wanhai, you're a good kid, you know, you have a job, blah blah blah. You should be a good catch." But 14:22 >> [laughter] >> after I went through that experience, I realized no. Um that that pride was that pride was gone. But my point is every single time I faced those rejections, it was a huge disappointment in my life. And I 14:34 remember at that time brother Zach speaking to me and he gave me this piece of advice and he said, "Wanhai, disappointments are God's appointments." And that helped me. Okay? Disappointments are God's appointments. And to be honest, at the time when I 14:46 heard it, it was still very hard to hear. Especially after like the fifth time someone said no to you and he's still saying, "Disappointments are God's appointments." But when I look back, I'm so thankful. I'm so thankful that those 14:56 doors were closed. Why? Because if those doors weren't closed, I would have missed out on marrying Crystal who's honestly the best the best wife in the world for me. And I'm really thankful that God shut all those doors and 15:09 thankful for all those disappointments because I could meet Crystal. And so, I want to encourage everyone, yes, there's going to be disappointments. And maybe in the area of marriage, seeking for a partner, there will be disappointments. 15:18 But please remember that disappointments are God's appointments. And don't ever feel that God will ever forget you. And I want to share a verse from Isaiah 49 in this regard. Isaiah 49 verses 15 and 16. About God's 15:38 love for us and how he'll never leave us for or forsake us. So we don't have to be discouraged. Isaiah 49 verse 15 and 16. I'll start with verse 15. Can a woman forget her nursing child and [clears throat] have no compassion on 15:52 the son of her womb? Even these may forget, but I will not forget you. So God compares his love for us like the way a mom looks for her her nursing child. And he'll never forget us. But I want to focus on verse 16. It says this, 16:06 "Behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands, and your walls are continually before me." And some other translation says, "I have engraved you on the palms of my hand." So if you take a second to think about it, what does it mean 16:20 to engrave someone's name in your hand? I don't know how they did the engraving uh back then. Maybe it's kind of like getting a tattoo today. Uh maybe they took something that's like a very hot iron and they would maybe sear it into 16:31 someone's hand. I don't know. Maybe they take a chisel or something and they they they they hit But basically the point is it involves pain. It involves pain. Engraving is something that involves pain. But the thing about this is that 16:42 it's also permanent. And once engraving is done, you can't get rid of it, as you know. And so the question is why does God engrave our names on the palms of his hand? Okay, so here's my hand. He's got Wen Hai written on there. 16:56 Why did God write Wen Hai in his palm? Is it cuz God's going to forget? Is it like a like a when you're taking a test and you, you know, forget the answers, you write your answers on your hand? Is it something like that? No, I don't 17:06 believe that's the case. God's memory is is perfect. But I believe the reason why God wrote our names on his hand is so that if we ever doubted, say, "Lord, you forgot about us." He could show us the names on his hand and it was a reminder 17:19 for us. It's a reminder for us that Lord, you never forgot us. So, when we look at the Lord's hand according to this verse, what will we see? I believe we'll see two things. We'll see one, the hole in his nail-pierced hands in 17:32 heaven, and then secondly, we'll see our name also on the palm of his hand. And those are the reminders that the Lord gives us to strongly encourage us to say, "Lord, we won't we My dear child, we will not forget you. I will not 17:42 forget you." And so, what happens when we deal with disappointment and we face disappointment? What's one good thing to do? And I would really encourage folks, when you're facing disappointment, sing loudly. Sing loudly, especially in the times of 17:54 praise. Sing loudly. I remember when I was single and I went through disappointments, one song that also helped me a lot was the that Don Moen song, "God is good all the time." And in the bridge, it goes something like this, 18:05 "And through the eyes of faith, I can clearly see God is good." And whenever I face disappointment, I would sing extra loud in a meeting for that. And for me, it was just a way of expressing my faith towards the Lord. Say, "Lord, this is 18:16 really sad, but at the same time, I have faith in you. I'm not going to be discouraged. I have faith in you. And the best way for me to get rid of that discouragement is to sing, sing loudly to you." So, dear brothers and sisters, 18:25 next time you come to church and you're going through a disappointment and you hear these songs, sing loud. Sing loud. That's a wonderful way to express your faith in the Lord. So, that's the second thing. The third thing I'll say is, I can find 18:37 contentment in Christ alone because he paid the price for my sins. And therefore, I will take my inner life seriously. You know, we just heard the memory verse from last week, 1 Corinthians 6:20, "You have been bought with a price. 18:52 Therefore, glorify God in your body." And I was thinking about that verse and I was thinking to myself, "What is that price? You've been bought with a price, but what is that price? If you had to put a dollar figure to it, like what would 19:04 that be? Because it would imply something. So, for example, if I say I bought a home, and I bought a home for let's say a thousand dollars, what would you think about that home? I would say this home is not very good and it would probably 19:16 break very soon. That's what a thousand dollar house means. But what if I bought a billion dollar home? And by the way, I looked online there are actually are billion dollar homes. [laughter] But if you bought a billion dollar home, 19:27 how would you feel about that home? You if you walked inside that home, you'd be extremely careful like hey, I might break this plant here. This is probably worth a million dollars or something and then you you'd be so careful about everything cuz it's such 19:38 an expensive home. So now the question is what is the price that Jesus paid for us? Is it a thousand dollars? Is it a billion dollars? Is it something so high that we can't even put a dollar figure to it? And I believe it's definitely the the 19:53 latter that he paid a I can't even imagine the price that he paid for our body. So what does it mean? It means that he values our bodies very much for him and that we should be very careful just like how if we have a again 20:05 a billion dollar home, we'd be so careful about everything inside. In the same way in our own lives, Lord, let me see that because you bought me with such a price, I want to be so careful. Careful about what my eyes see, what my 20:15 tongue does, what tongue says, etc. And the other part of that verse that stood out to me is says therefore glorify God in your body. And I love how here when it talks about glorifying God, it's not how we typically think about 20:28 glorifying God. Like in the world today when you hear the word oh glorify God, what does it mean? Some people think oh I'm going to go sing a song and sing praise to him. Okay, that's one way. And other people say hey, I'm going to 20:37 go serve and do ministry in a church and serve him. Okay, maybe that's another way. But I like this way quite a lot. How do we glorify God in our body? By having purity. By having purity in our life. That is the the glory that we 20:50 want to use to to give God cuz imagine what is the point if you had two choices? You have one person who's serving but they're struggling with with lust and then you have another person who's maybe not doing a lot of stuff. 21:00 Okay, but they're living a pure life. What is more valuable to God? I would say definitely that person who's doing much less in a church, but they have purity in in their eyes, purity in their in their lives. So, that's my 21:11 encouragement, dear brothers and sisters, that may we seek for glory glorifying God with a purity of our lives. So, that's the third thing. Because he's paid the price for my sins, I'll take my inner life seriously. And then fourthly, 21:26 I can find contentment in Christ alone because his opinion is all that matters. Therefore, I will be free from the opinions of men. So, we see that Christ is all that we want, then we will be more and more free from the opinions of 21:41 men. And I'll just share a quote that was actually the last sermon Brother Santo shared with us at last year's singles discipleship group that really stood out to me. And this is from George Müller. And while we're while before I say that, 21:53 if you could turn with me to John 5:44, okay? John 5:44. Okay, I'll read this quote while you're turning there. So, this is a quote that we heard from again, the end of last year's singles discipleship group. Uh George Müller said this, 22:09 "There was a day when I died. Died to George Müller, his opinions, preferences, tastes, and will. Died to the world, its approval or censure. Died to the approval or blame even of my brethren or friends. And since then, I have studied only to show 22:25 myself approved unto God." And so, that was a really challenging phrase for me when I heard this this last year. That George Müller was someone who died just to show just to show himself approved to God and only live for God's 22:38 approval. And if I don't look at my own life, it's so easy to see where man's approval can creep in so easily. I'll just take a very simple example, like sharing, okay? If I share get a chance to share at church, and afterwards 22:49 somebody says, "Hey, Win Ai, that was a great sharing. That blessed me." And immediately in my heart I think, "Oh, great. God must be pleased with my sharing. Somebody liked it." Or if I go to YouTube and there's a couple likes, 22:58 "Oh, wow, people I'm sure." But this is the silly stuff, but like I honestly tell you that's the stuff that comes to my head. But I say, "Lord, this idea of the the approval man is so much ingrained inside me. And Lord, I I need 23:10 to get this out." And we see in Matthew 5, sorry, John 5:44 why this is so important. And Jesus says this, "How can you believe when you receive glory from one another, and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and 23:24 only God?" So, we see from that verse that the approval of man is a is a blocker for growing in faith in God. And we look at the life of George Müller, he's a classic example of someone who had such tremendous faith in God, but where did that faith come from? 23:39 And I believe one of the reasons that he had such tremendous faith was because of that quote. Because he did not live for the approval of man, but for the approval of God. For example, you know that story when he had nothing to eat, and the kids 23:49 said, "Hey, let George Müller say, 'Hey, just pray for the food. It's It's an empty plate.'" And then all of a sudden someone comes with a milk bottle, someone comes in with a bread. That's a tremendous faith. Then where did that 23:58 faith come from? How could he even have a faith like that? And I believe it's through that quote for his that he didn't live for the approval of man, he lived for the approval of God, and that's how God grew his his faith. So, I 24:09 just want to encourage all of us, dear brothers and sisters, that if we see that Christ alone um we find contentment in Christ alone, his opinion is all that matters. And so therefore, we can be free from the opinions of men. 24:21 And I'll just share one last thing. I can find contentment in Christ alone because all that I have comes from him. Therefore, I will not touch his glory. Okay, so if we're content to have just Christ alone, then we'll know that everything we have 24:36 comes from him. And therefore, I don't want to touch anything that belongs to him, and that's especially his glory. So lastly, turn with me to Exodus chapter 35. Exodus chapter 35. I want to show an example here from the Old Testament 24:50 of a of an artist or a craftsman named Bezalel. Okay. So, Exodus 35 uh 30. And so this is the time when they were about to build the the tabernacle. And Exodus 30 verse 35, and Moses says this, 25:08 "Then Moses said to the sons of Israel, 'See, the Lord has called by name Bezalel, the son of Uri, the son of Hur, from the tribe of Judah. And he explains this What's so special about Bezalel? And it says this, 'And God has filled him with the spirit of 25:23 God in wisdom, and in understanding, and knowledge, and all craftsmanship, to make designs for working in gold, and silver, and bronze, and for cutting of stones, for the settings, for the carving of wood, etc.' So Bezalel was 25:37 someone who was instrumental in building the ark. And when you think about the ark, it was such a the tabernacle was such a beautiful thing. Um there's the the curtains where it had a really intricate um threads that were woven into it. Um the 25:48 ark itself was was beautiful. It must have been crafted out of, you know, wood. Um there was an altar uh that was according to certain designs by God. So it takes us really special skill to do those things. And my question is this, 25:59 when I was thinking about Bezalel, when he finished, for example, building the ark, okay? Do you think he went to the bottom of the ark and just like maybe inscribed his name in there? Just maybe just a little B. >> [laughter] 26:11 >> Like just a little B, okay? It's still the ark, but I want to inscribe just a little B in there. Just like how artists do today. You paint a painting and then you, you know, put your name on there. That's that's normal. But did he do 26:20 that? He didn't, okay? And even though it was so intricate, it was so beautiful, you never see anywhere in scripture that there's a B Bezalel anywhere in in the scriptures. So what is that a picture of? For me, that's a 26:32 picture of how we are to operate in the church. We might do things for the Lord, like Bezalel. God has given each of us special gifts. And when we do those gifts for the Lord, the question is, do we want to put our initials there? Put a 26:43 WP after write something I did. Small, but I just want a little bit of myself. And Bezalel, I think is a good example of someone who we can learn from, especially in the new covenant church, that when we do things for the Lord, we 26:53 say, "Lord, all the glory must must go to you. I don't want even an initial in the work that I'm doing here." You know, when I uh had a chance to to um take the the this role of an elder at NCCF, um I really appreciated one of the gifts that 27:06 one of the sisters in the church had given me. And if you think about the gift, like what would you give someone who was recently appointed an elder? Like you give them a, you know, a Bible or you give them some flowers. This 27:15 sister gave me a toilet bowl, okay? He gave me a She gave me a little tiny toilet bowl, okay? And it was a reminder for us because as brother Zach I said, who's what's an elder? Elder's a toilet bowl cleaner in a church. And that must 27:27 be my attitude for for the rest of my life as long as I'm I'm doing this role. And so I'm just want to encourage you, dear brothers and sisters, that may we have that attitude as well. Like we all have little toilet bowls say, "Lord, I'm here 27:38 in this church to be a servant. I'm here in this church to to clean up uh the messes and to help others. And I don't want to touch your glory." Because we find contentment in Christ, all the glory should be towards him. 27:49 Let me close with one last verse. Let me close with one last verse. Uh Luke chapter 5 and verse 11. Luke chapter 5 and verse 11. We started off with that verse of from the song, "Once it was a blessing, now is the Lord." So, I just want to go 28:04 back to that real quick. We want to find contentment in Christ alone. And I really like this story of someone who found contentment in in Jesus alone. Luke chapter 5 and verse um 11. And so, the context of this story is 28:18 that Jesus was walking near the waters and uh he saw the the like a people who who were going to call to be disciples. And then they caught a great uh catch of fish. So, Jesus said in verse 4, uh "Simon, put out into the deep water and let down 28:33 your nets for a catch." And then Simon Peter pulls up this great quantity of fish, verse 6, so much so that their nets began to break. So, imagine, that's a lot of fish that's right there. And so then afterwards, they pull 28:45 everything up. And then Jesus says to them, "Do not fear. From now on you'll be catching men." So imagine if if you and I were there, what would you do? Okay, so Jesus just said, "Put the net down. You got a tremendous bucket of of fish." Okay, 29:00 boats full of fish. Okay? What would you do next? And Jesus calls you to come. Now if I I were there, I might say, "Hey Jesus, I would love to come with you. Just let me sell this fish in the market first. I'll sell this fish in the market and 29:12 then I'll come." But what did these disciples do? It says in verse 11, "When they had brought their boats to the land, they left everything and followed him." So they had all the blessings of God right in front of them, 29:23 so to speak. They had all this fish. Um tremendous blessings from the Lord. For what what was it to them? They said, "No, this is not important to me. I want to follow Jesus." And that was a really good example, I feel, of people who 29:35 really found a contentment in in Christ alone. So that's my desire for for myself, um and I hope for all the dear young people here and the people in this church, that may we live a life that wants to desire Christ alone. I was really challenged 29:48 again by the singing last night and I faithfully that God will make this so in my life and in lives of the people in this in this church. So thank you so much for giving me a chance to share.
