Good to see you guys here this morning. Thank you for Rich and uh Natalia. Thank you for having us in your house. We crammed all the kids in their house last night, we got three kids. So there's now six kids in the house. Uh My wife's pregnant with another kid just because we want to make life easier for ourselves. Uh Secretly, it's a retirement plan. One of them is likely to be a genius. The rest of them will probably just cause trouble and, and we'll go from there. But uh no, it's amazing. Uh being with you here this morning and I just hope uh what we can bring here today is just, is just a blessing to you, but also a start of uh just more relationship. We need, we need more connections between our churches. In Canada, spirit filled Bible, believing churches, uh who love Jesus and make him the main thing. And uh yeah, like like Rich said, I grew up, um, actually you had Joel Virgo here minister last week. So I grew up in the network of churches uh that his dad let. And so walking into this church doing worship. I even nudged my wife during worship and says they sing the same new frontiers songs that we, that we used to sing. And it just is the feel I know this when I moved to uh the west coast of Canada, me and my wife, we met in Mozambique at uh an orphanage at a missions training school there. I tried to convince her to move to England. She won the battle and I ended up moving to the West Coast and I'm extremely thankful for that. Um Although we didn't know what was gonna happen. And uh but I walked into a church over on the west coast of Canada, Oceanside church, as rich said, and I just remember walking in the front doors and I just felt like something feels like family here, something feels like home. And although it was part of a different network of churches, um Actually Terry Virgo Joel's dad, who, who led, who preached here last week. And his dad pre um his son preached here last week. Um His dad led that network and Ashley knew the person who had led the group of churches that we had found on, on the other coast. So when we walked in and it just felt like it felt like home, it felt so natural. Uh That was the reason why. And uh we've had an unexpected journey into ministry. Uh I did a gap year um in South Africa, I remember just growing up in the south of England and I'd seen people do sort of like a year of your life program in South Africa and just the way that they had come back and had all these amazing stories. And I was about to do a degree in computer science and I thought, let me just defer my entry for that and let me just go see what, what all these guys have done in South Africa. And that was a year where God just took me and showed me and I really just fell in love with, with his, his church. I mean, I love Jesus, but I think we're also called to love his, his bride, the people of the church and, and serving that. Um And then the, the year after that, God really spoke prophetically and uh both he led me and Camilla to Mozambique uh where we met and then on from there. But we spent about the five, first five years in Canada just doing life. You know, we, we found a church, we, we looked for a church where the leaders um were people that we, we respected. I remember coming to Oceanside church. Um because I, I met an amazing guy there called Paul mcmahon. He was one of the elders there. And I just thought, I want my life to look like this man's life. I want my faith to look like this man's faith. And he was leading the young adult ministry at the time. And uh, yeah, we just started going to young adults. I started giving, uh uh asking his input into my life. And, you know, I was a young married man, so I was making lots of mistakes um in terms of leading marriage and, and all the other stuff and, and all the mistakes you, you, you make when you're doing new things. Uh, but that man spoke into my life and actually, it's the reason I get to stand here this morning. He, he brought me through, he saw something in my life that I didn't see for myself. Uh It started with leading a life group and then, and then eventually employment into the life of the church and then eventually elder and then after that, about four years ago, the lead couple, the church had been going for about 25 years. Um They, they sat us down and, and said, hey, we actually feel that it will be you guys who, who take this church when we step out of ministry. I just wanted to support, I just wanted to come behind someone with a vision and give my everything to, to that vision and to, to serve and support. But I think with that kind of attitude, that kind of, hey, I wanna serve my leaders, I wanna respect my leaders. I wanna honor my leaders, God, really with our open handedness. He was able to put other things in our hands that we didn't expect. And just, this doesn't count as the preach. I've started my time about rich. It doesn't count. Ok. Um But I just say, like, find good Godly men and women who you want to model your life on and let them see your life and let them speak into it. The greatest thing about that is those leaders, they see you sort of five years down the road of what God could do. And whereas sometimes you only think what God has done so far, but they can see you and take, take you on that journey. And that's what, that's what discipleship is. And just as we've known, Richard and Talia, um I can see that these are good Godly leaders and just briefly meeting some of you other others. It's amazing what God is doing here. Uh In one of the most significant cities in Canada, we come from one of the most insignificant cities in Canada, Nanaimo, Vancouver Island. Um And I, I just, I, I, that won't go back to my church. This isn't being posted online. Right. Right now. I'm just kidding. It's fine. But we come from like polar opposite cities, right? And we come from a city that is uh actually the least Christian city in Canada, Nanaimo or they took that census? When was it? It was, yeah, I can't remember the year of the census a couple of years ago now and it came out and it, it showed that we were dead last for people attending church and having faith in Jesus Christ. And actually, you know, when, you know, you're last, you know, actually the only way is up from here. And so we were encouraged, I mean, like we, we just know the work that is to do in that, in that city. Right? We, we know what we're calling as we knew it before. But now we really know and I will say, um maybe get to some testimonies later. But II, I will say we are starting to see the Lord move in that city. Uh Like we haven't seen in the last few decades. People coming to know Jesus Christ with zero church background, they'll come, they'll sit in not knowing anything about faith. Um Just have a lot of questions and, and are really seeking the Lord. We've had people experience dreams of Jesus visions of Jesus. We've had people in the hospital hear the voice of the Lord and end up coming to church and being healed. And um we are kind of just like flabbergasted about what, what God might be doing in our city. And we are expecting and hopeful that actually our city isn't gonna go, just recede and recede and recede into the depths of, you know, what the world has for people. But actually there is new life being birth in the city. And I don't believe that's just for Nanaimo. I don't believe it's just for the least churched city in Canada. I think it actually is significant on this city as well because if we are gonna see Nanaimo taken for the gospel, if we're gonna see the love of Jesus Christ poured out, this is a significant city in, in the life of the church in Canada. I don't know what you all do. I don't know how you, what your position is in the city or if you're just passing through, if you know Jesus or not. But I just wanna say like the call of God in this city is significant. And my church prays for this city often in our prayer meetings. We don't have, we keep things simple. When we pray, we just pray for the Lord's kingdom to come and we pray mostly for our city. But then second on that list is we pray for the city of Ottawa and uh we pray, we, we pray for our government and we pray for everybody serving in that, that God would raise up good Godly leaders and, and the, the revival would begin in that place as well. I know that you've uh just come to the end of the Book of Acts. No, the first chapter of the Book of Acts. I'm here to end your series. I'll do the rest of the book. No, just kidding. That's not happening. Uh But you just finished the first chapter of Acts. That's amazing. An amazing uh book to be in to see the explosion of the gospel. You know, to see uh the gospel go out into significant cities and that the Lord directed the apostles path to different places, significant places. Um But it's an exciting book to be in because you're witnessing like a white hot move of God, right? If you could get in a time machine and you could go to various places throughout church history and say I wanna be present here. You know, you'd probably pick like I wanna be present around the death and the resurrection of Christ and then the birth of the early church and Pentecost and the feeling of the Holy Spirit and the explosion of the faith and forget all the persecution. I'll leave that behind. But the explosion, the white hot faith, I will take that. Um I, you know, like fire falling from heaven at Pentecost, tongues of fire, all this other stuff, you know, it's such an exciting place to think about and go. But I don't want to step on the toes of a but funnily enough the, the scripture that I thought um that, that the Lord would have me to bring to you here this morning. There was actually another time where fire fell from heaven and it was actually a time of white hot faith in Jesus. Yeah. Not in Jesus Christ. They didn't know the Messiah's name then, but white hot faith in God and it's actually if you have your Bibles with you, open them to second chronicles seven. So we're going to Old Testament today. But um in here um is an explanation of what is happening at that time. The amazing um watermarks of water lines of, of, of faith that they had completing uh works that God had told them to do. But then God said something to them immediately in this area of being a white hot face. And it's, and it's sort of like Lord, we just in this amazing period. Why are you telling us about a different period that might come in the future? Anyway, let's let's jump into it here. You're with me, you're good. Everyone's OK. Perfect. Um So second chronicle seven and so after king, we had King David, if you, if you're new to the Bible, and if you're new to scripture, King David is one of the most significant kings in the Old Testament. Um And then his son Solomon came along and there was this work that they were doing. They were entering into the promised land, they were building the temple of the Lord and it was Solomon who, who finished the temple. And in second chronicles six, um there is a prayer that, that Solomon prays right at the end as they are consecrating the temple as they are sacrificing before the Lord as they are saying, look, Lord, look at our completed work. Now come and fill this place. And it says at the beginning of chapter seven, it says as soon as Solomon finished his prayer, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices and the glory of the Lord filled the temple and the priests could not enter the house of the Lord because the glory of the Lord filled the Lord's house. How many of you want to be in a place where the glory of the Lord fills this place and to such a degree that like people haven't uh uh have it find it difficult entering into the places where the Lord God is being worshiped because his presence is so thick. There have been some tastes of that I've had throughout my life and there is a hunger in my life to, to experience the presence of God, to go into the places where he dwells. And then in verse three, it says, when all the people of Israel saw the fire come down and the glory of the Lord on the temple, they bowed with their faces to the ground on the pavement and worshiped and gave thanks to the Lord. And it's just this picture of like a whole nation seeing a display of the Lord's glory bowing down. And you know, nobody could say anything else. They, they'd witness a tremendous display of what God was doing and nobody gave any other utterance than other than this must be the Lord God who created the heavens and the earth. We are his people. He is our God. This is a good place to be. If you were dialing that time machine in and choosing somewhere to go, you might go here as well just to witness what was happening around that time. But it's interesting uh later that night, if you read on um Solomon uh goes to bed, it says in verse 12 and it says uh then the Lord appeared to Solomon in the night and said to him, I'm wondering if this was a dream or a vision or maybe Solomon just couldn't sleep after the the wild celebrations that they had had, then the Lord appeared to Solomon. And in the night said to him, I have heard your prayer and I have chosen this place for my myself as a house of sacrifice continuing. He says, when I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain or command the Locusts to devour the land or send pestilence among my people. If my people who are called by my name, humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and I will forgive their sin and heal their land. How many of you have heard that verse before? It's a, it's a verse that common commonly goes around when we're crying out for a fresh move of God, maybe in a time of difficulty. But it's interesting to think that actually this word from God didn't come to a people who were, who had rejected him. This word from God didn't come from a people who were depressed and down and out. Actually, the, the this word this like day after word from the glory of the Lord filling the temple. This word of warning came to God's people immediately when they were at their whitest hot moment of faith. And as I, as I've looked into this passage and researched more, I'm like, oh, why did you speak this word of warning then? Surely, surely that the instruction of how to get back to your place of presence comes when we've fallen comes when we need it the most. But Ashley, the Lord gives the instruction on how to get back into his presence. When things are going well, things are going well in this city. Many of you are seeing advancements in your careers. Uh You're, you're stepping out into the call that God has for you in those different places, things are going well, maybe you're seeing tremendous favor. There's probably other people in this room. That's the great thing about churches where there's some people celebrating victories. There's some people suffering defeat here this morning as well and we're available to pray at the end for whatever's happening in your life. But this word is for all of us. Ok? When things go wrong, how do we get back into the Lord's presence? My title, I think for this morning, although Rich can change it to whatever he wants is I think what to do when everything goes wrong. But it's interesting that this instruction comes when everything was going right. We see it all throughout the, the Old Testament. But if you're unfamiliar, we, we so often see this generational cycle within the Old Testament before Christ came. It was, there was a generation who loved the Lord. And then there was a generation who got complacent and then generations who turned their back on the Lord and, and were more interested in the gods of the people around them than the gods, the Bible. And we see this like yo yoing this pendulum effect of of people returning to the Lord, leaving the Lord, returning to the Lord, leaving the Lord. And that's why I think why this instruction is so pertinent even when Israel was, had so much success, even though they had almost peaked probably in their mindset, they just thought it's permanently up from where we're going here. Um The Lord God was saying, actually, I know the human heart, I know the heart that hasn't been sanctified by Jesus. And I know what that human heart does. When things get easy, humans get complacent. When humans get complacent, they turn their eyes to false gods, not the God of the Bible. One writer said, I don't believe he's a Christian, but he said hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times, create weak men and weak men create hard times. I don't know what generation we're living in right now on, on that spectrum. But the end of that cycle, it's a cycle. That quote is a cycle, right? When hard times come, hard times create strong people. And I do want to encourage you here this morning is that if you are in a hard time in your life, there is actually strength available to you through Jesus Christ that can actually bring you and strengthen you and do so much. But again, what we wanna do here this morning is examine what was said to Solomon in this time of victory. And just to reflect, verse 14 is the most significant here for us. Here this morning says, if my people who are called by my name, humble themselves, pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven. I will forgive their sin and I will heal their land. The first thing for us here this morning is that before anything before we turn, before we pray, before we seek his face and go into his presence before we perhaps even repent. We remember who we are. If you are a believer in Jesus Christ here this morning, there is an identity that is on your life that can never be taken away. My children's identity is built into who they are my very DNA is in their body testifying to, to them that they are my Children, no matter how far they go away from me, no matter if they reject me one day, they will always be my Children. And it's same for the people of the Lord. And if we are wanting to turn back to the Lord, actually, the very first thing that we need to remember is that we are his, the New Testament. Writers tell us, they say you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own possession later it says, who calls you out of darkness into his marvelous life? You are God's possession and a possession can't take themselves away from that fact. First Corinthians six even says you are not your own. You were bought with a price that price of Jesus Christ sacrificed to us. But the first thing we do is remember that we are his. If you're in the valley of the suffering, if you are in the valley of, of turning, you know, needing to turn back to God. The first thing we do is remember that we are his. And if you are not his, if you've never, if you've never accepted Jesus Christ into your life as Lord and Savior, that's the very first thing we do as well is get that right. The next thing we we see is that we are called by the Lord God Almighty to humble ourselves, John, the Baptist, when Jesus was just appearing to him, he said he must increase and I must decrease. But the interesting thing about humility again, if we're in a place of suffering or darkness, especially, you know, when Israel did reject God and then perhaps even foreign armies came and conquered them. They, they had, right. They had already been humbled in a sense, they had been taken down from a position of pride. The Lord God had actually sent uh things uh to them at times. Um Because the, the the nation had turned away from God. And so God had actually done a humbling work in their life. What I do wanna say for, for us is that humbling isn't just being down in the dumps. Humbling isn't just knowing that oh man, you've messed up and you've done wrong. The truest form of humility is not concentrating on yourself but is concentrating on God. And I believe when God calls his church to humble themselves or call his people to humble themselves, it's not turning the mirror back on ourselves to see how wrong and messed up we are or how far we've fallen uh from the things that he's called us to. Actually, we've got uh uh take those mirrors that the enemy would love to show us at times and actually instead raise our eyes to see who he is. The truest form of humbling. That takes sense in a takes place in a believer's life is, is not going to be on the day when you realize how wrong you are. But on the day where you see how glorious God is, this isn't in my notes but the John John, who, who saw the vision of revelation, who saw the vision of heaven immediately when he was in the throne room of God, what did he do? He fell down at the Lord's feet as though he was dead. That is the humbling that I want to take place in my life. Not a humbling of seeing myself, but a humbling of seeing God. God is a good parent who doesn't want to tell his Children. Well, let me tell you the list of things that you have done wrong. The Lord knows them. He knows that you know them. But instead He wants that humbling process to be actually an exposing of who he is. When Jesus died on the cross, the the curtain that, that held the people away from the Lord's presence was torn in two. And now hallelujah, for New Testament, Christians have the spirit of the Lord. We can enter into his presence. Humbling yourself is n not excluding yourself from life group, is not excluding yourself from church. It's not going away to the weary place. It's coming to the house of the Lord and seeing Jesus again. That's the humility that God wants for his people. That's the humility that God wants for us. In this place of coming back to him. And these are also things not just for us when we're doing poorly, this will also these things keep us on the right track in his presence. The call to humble ourselves is a constant call on the Christian life. How many of you believe that? Listen to the Lord's words at the sermon of the Mount. How many can come away proud, how many can come away righteous? No. He exposes everything. He exposes our constant need for his righteousness where our righteousness has failed. The second thing that this text leads us to is to pray. But before we get there, there's, there's a, there's a codependency on prayer and humility. There's a reason why in this text that humility had to come first before the instruction to pray. How can you pray if you're proud? How can you pray if you're self sufficient? How can you pray if you depend on yourself? But you're not dependent on God. I don't know if you know an amazing woman called Jackie Hill Perry. But she said this about prayer lessness. She said prayer, lessness is almost always a humility issue. We'd like to believe that we don't pray because we're, we're so busy or that we just like discipline. But at the end of the day, we are just a proud bunch who agrees. We are a proud bunch. We're a successful bunch. We're a proud bunch. We are just a proud bunch. Pride deludes us into thinking that we are self sufficient. So again, the step so far is that we need to remember God, we need to remember that we are his. We need to remember that we are secure. The second thing is that we humble ourselves before him, not by seeing how we've messed up, but by seeing his glory by bringing hope, humility, a true humble people or a hope filled people. They are not a depressed people. Depression. You some of us think that depression is humility. No, it's not depression is listening to the lies of the enemy over the promises of God. True humility is accepting the promises of God, no matter what our mental states tell ourselves. Ok? And we are to pray. We are to be a praying people. Ottawa. I I love you. This is my first time here on the East Coast. It's amazing to be here and we arrived late last night and we, we arrived in darkness. So we haven't seen the, the, the the glory of your city yet. But uh any people, whatever city they find themselves in, whether in a Nanaimo or an Ottawa, we need to be a praying people. We you do amazing things. There are amazing efforts. There are amazing, you know, Daniels being raised up within the city to, to have positions of influence and power. But we always need to be a praying people. And actually the reason why prayer comes after humbling ourselves is we realize that actually all power belongs to who all power belongs to our God and Him alone. I love Isaiah 46 because it just talks about the ultimate power of the Lord God Almighty. I'm gonna, I'm gonna just, just uh bring a few quick things out here from Isaiah 46. But I know Isaiah 46 the Lord speaks and he says, I am God and there is no other, I am God and there is none like me, my council shall stand and I will accomplish my purpose. I have spoken. I will bring it to pass. I have purposed it and I will do it. Do you see that? It's the Lord's purposes who stands. It's the Lord's will who has ultimate effect. And if he truly is the God of the Bible, the God who created all of this, then we should perk up and listen to what he is saying. God is saying that when I speak, it gets done, we can strive for years for decades in the natural, but in the supernatural, when God speaks, it can be done in a moment. Do you believe that is their faith in this room to believe that the battles that the battlegrounds that the Lord God has called you to fight in are battles that actually he's gonna to wage and win for you rather than you having to do all the war waging yourself. The Lord does want to call his people into the difficult places, into the hard places out of the zone of being comfortable and into his calling to take ground for his kingdom. But we better be a people who accept that. It's gonna be his will, that reigns over our will. And if you remind yourself how Jesus taught us to pray. So Jesus, the messiah, the son of God, he said this in Matthew six shortly after in that sermon of the mount, he said, you know, pray like this. And the first thing he says is to position yourself and remember who God is. It actually reflects really closely to what is said to Solomon. He says, pray like this. Our father in heaven hallowed or holy be your name before you get to your agenda, before you get to your will before you get to your need. Remember who God is, remember where He is and Ashley don't just remember that He is all powerful, but remember that He's your father. And by what does that mean for us that we are his Children? Hum humility is remembering that He's the father. We're the Children who he loves our father in heaven. The next thing Jesus instructs us, the recipe of prayer is remembering. It's his will. Jesus says, your kingdom come, your will be done. Notice it hasn't come to what our will is yet. It hasn't come to Lord do this for my city. Lord do this for that family in need. Lord do this for my church, even the very good prayers that we need to be praying for in all these situations. At first we remember it's his will. It's his ways that need to be done. When we come to the place of prayer. It's about seeing God's will and praying into that. Those are prayers that I have faith for the reason why we're praying and the reason why we're, we're, we're truly believing in faith. For the city of Nanaimo is we know for a fact that it is the will of God to save men, women and Children from their sin and their sickness. I know that without a shadow of a doubt that that is the true will of God. We see it all over the bible so I can pray those prayers with full authority, full faith that we are gonna see our city saved and see people come to know Jesus. It's in those places where I, I can see the Lord's will in scripture that then my faith arises because it's not my good idea. It's his ultimate authoritative idea. And his council stands, my council falls on its face. His council stands, Jesus gives us our aim. He says on earth as it is in heaven. This is the call to never pray, mild self defeated prayers. We pray from the position of what takes place in heaven. If there's sickness in our body that tells me that, that, hey, I know there's no sickness in my body when it appears before the Lord God almighty. And therefore I shall pray today on earth, that sickness before us is healed. And then after our position, after his will, after our heavenly aim is secured in prayer, then comes provision. And what does Jesus say? Give us this day our daily bread. He doesn't say Lord give us this day, our awesome Maserati or that amazing condo the Lord God has provided for me and Camilla in a miraculous way. We have actually prayed for apartments and they have been given to us, not given to us like we rented, we paid rent, but we were like we were living in a basement suite and we really wanted to have a life group in our house. And we were like, we just know that we can't have a life group in this place. And we knew of this coffee shop and we know of the Christian owner of this coffee shop and actually a pastor was living above uh the coffee shop. It was amazing. Vault is beautiful in the forest surroundings, like amazing place to live. Just a place where you wanna invite people over constantly. And we were praying one day, Lord get us out of this basement suite. And if we could have, if we could have any place to invite people into your kingdom, it would be that place. And then after that prayer, Camilla says, you know what I we need to follow that, that step of that ask and just ask the landlord and then the landlord who, who we knew said, you know what Christian pie, the the leader who uh pastor, he's just handed in his, his, his, you know, however month's notice come, come and take the apartment so God can give us good things, but less Maserati, more kingdom purposes and provision and then there's reconciliation, there's guidance on from there. But it is so often the battle of the wills and humbling ourselves is about elevating his will over our will. Prayer is about understanding His will over our will. Yes, we, we, we we we share where we're at. Yes, we share what our desires are to the Lord, just like a child with a parent, but just like a parent with a child. The parents gonna say this is what we're gonna do and also a parent with a child loves to fulfill the requests of that child. If it's in line with the parents will, right? I ask if my kid asks for a banana, I'm like, yeah, have 50. That's great fruit. Finally, the New Testament encourages us that when we ask according to his will, we can be certain that he hears us and we can pray for authority when we pray into His will. Well, one of the most significant things I think here and what I want us to go back for is and to really say that he after he says, pray, he says, seek my face. So we like we've heard all, all this stuff before in, in church, right before we've heard yet, we remember who is good Children. We humble ourselves, we pray. But do we seek the face of the Lord? Just as I was finishing up my prep here, I just, you know, I just reminded of Exodus 33 when, when the Lord, when the the Lord God was um well, Moses was going to uh God and saying I really wanna be in your presence. Lord, I want really wanna experience your glory. If you're gonna send us into the promised land, I need to experience your glory for the for the journey ahead. The Lord says back. He says, you cannot see my face for man, shall not see me and live. So now I'm confused. The Bible is telling me to seek the face of the Lord. But also telling me that if I ever see the face of the Lord, I'm I'm gonna die, right? I'm gonna fall on my face. That's li that's life over when, when the, when the power, when you see the and experience the true power of the Lord God Almighty. If we were in that place still alive in the flesh, we, the Bible says, if you were encountered the Lord God Almighty, the Lord who spoke the universe into being you would die. But what I, what this verse did point out to me it's not the truest theological sense of that verse. But there is this sense that when we are in the presence of the Lord, we are changed when you, if you believe in Jesus and you believe you're saved by Jesus. But we know that we're very still broken. We know that we still struggle with that depression. We know that we still struggle in our bodies. And unfortunately, the older we get the, the more struggles we might have in our physical bodies. Lazarus was raised from the dead. But then he, he died again. I, I like to joke. He's like he's great. He, he lived, he God raised him from the dead. But then he, unfortunately, he died twice poor guy. But when Lazarus stood before stands before God in heaven, everything broken, everything, deathly, everything that's not of God gets washed away and he stands in a new glorious body before Jesus Christ. That if you're a Christian, that is our, is our destination. That's our new start. It's not even the final destination. It is just the new starting place for where we have a relationship with Jesus. There's gonna be a day where we, where we stand before him, we're consumed by his glory and everything broken is gonna be, is gonna be transformed into his glory. And I feel the Lord would say this to you guys here this morning is that when you seek the face of God, when you see the face of God, when you see the face of God, there's nothing that's not of Him, of Him that can still exist in His presence. And this I think is the key turn for people who need to come back into the Lord's presence is yes, the humbling. Yes, the praying, but really the earnest seeking of Him and Him alone. Truly, we are changed in the presence of the Lord. We are changed in the presence of scripture. We are changed when scripture is preached full of faith and full of the spirit. But in first John three, it says when we see him, we shall be like him or we shall be like him because we shall see him as he is. And over the last few years, the Lord has really taught me. I I really struggled as, as an Adele adolescent teenage guy as as every as most of us do. But when this verse I saw this and I, I saw that Ashley, I'm gonna be like Jesus when I can see him as he is that told me that that the solution to getting rid of all the junk in my life that I needed to get rid of wasn't through my own efforts. It wasn't through my own dedication. It wasn't through the that mirror of humility, telling myself how disgusting and defeated I was. It wasn't through seeing myself, it was through seeing him. And that has been the journey of my life. The more I have seen the risen Christ for who he is, the more I have wanted to be like him, the more I have been transformed to be liking. And there's a day coming when that's gonna happen fully, there's a day coming when, when just the the sinful parts of me are gonna be dead and buried. Thank goodness. And because I have that hope this same verse first John three says, those who hope in that day purify themselves like he is pure. That means that when we see Jesus, when we seek his face, when we're in his presence, when we go to that place, we cannot help but be transformed to become like him. That is the solution for when everything goes wrong. That is the solution for when we are in the depths of despair. That is the solution. In fact, I remember walking my dog one day and I was so depressed. I was walking my dog around this field. I was crying because I was in a state of depression that I could not get out of. I was stuck. I felt like there was chains on my hands. I was in bondage. And the Lord spoke to me at the end of that walk, he said, lift your eyes to me. And I realized what so many men and women had told me before that as, as I examined the state of myself. Yes, I'm depressed. Yes, I'm hopeless. Yes, I've, I've messed up in ways. Yes, I've, I've messed up my marriages where, you know, uh, marriages. I have one marriage. Sorry. And I'm still married to her by the grace of God. But yes, I've messed up in so many ways. I've offended so many people but lift your eyes to Jesus and that stuff will start to die to fall off away in Jesus Christ in Second Corinthians three. It says, and we all so that's all of us here who know Jesus and we all with unveiled face. Again, that veil has been taken away. That curtain in the temple has been torn into and we all with unveiled face beholding, looking at the glory of the Lord are being transformed. The key to transformation, the key to discipleship. The key to to to stepping into the Lord's will in your life is to behold his glory is to be in his presence. Don't think that anything else will do it. It's that will do it. Being close to him will change you. You can't stand. We have a wood stove in our house. You can't be in the same room as that wood stove and not feel the heat from it and you become warm yourself. If you come in with your winter jacket, you quickly take it off, you quickly like I should have come to this place in shorts and t-shirt. It's 30 degrees in here. My wife likes to run it very hot, but you cannot be in the presence of the Lord without being his presence and his glory being transposed into your own life, being transformed into the same image into his image. From one degree of glory to another church. If we wanna see Ottawa changed, if we wanna see the the revival of the Lord go from, go from this cinema, from this theater on to the rest of the nation. It's gotta be a people who are seeking the glory, seeking the face of the Lord because in that place, the old part of us cannot live. But because of Jesus Christ, we can be transformed, transformed into his image. And that is the solution for when everything goes wrong. Psalm 24 says, who shall ascend the hill of the Lord. And verse six says, the generation of those who seek him who seek the face of God as we have started seeking the face of God. In Nanaimo, we we mainly saw growth in our church from other existing Christians coming in and you know from other churches, if they'd ever moved from Vancouver to the island to retire or whatever, we mainly saw cross growth. But I tell you at the end of 2023 we had a uh we just knew the Lord was calling us back to a place of prayer, calling us to a place of seeking his face, seeking his glory. That was the main theme that we took into 2024. And I tell you since this year and it's not because of us, it's, it's because of him. But we have started to see situations that we can take no credit for. Again, people are turning up at church wanting to know Jesus without anybody having evangelized to them or witnessed to them. And I was getting up one Sunday and I was, I was giving some testimonies and I, I, and I in my, my self, British self deprecating kind of humor. I says, well, aren't we a lucky bunch that the Lord would, would do that here? And I felt the Lord rebuke me and said, no, you prayed for this. Yes, you've done nothing. But you have asked for my will to come into this city and I am bringing it here. We had a prophetic vision the the other the other day. Someone just said, I feel like these stories that we're hearing more and more. It's like apples falling off an apple tree. It's like ripe fruit. When, when fruit is ready, it just falls off that tree. And then we thought to ourselves, my gosh, what happens when you go shake a tree that the fruit are ripe? Yeah, they're not all gonna fall. But I tell you, there is a growing hunger in this nation and you are extremely important to this nation. So get in the presence of God. There is transformation for yourself, but there is also transformation for the nations because the Lord God says, and then it says, as we turn from our wicked ways, we repent in that as well. Interestingly, we are able to repent after we've sought his face. OK? Listen to the order there. It's not repent. And then you can come into the Lord's presence, it's come into the Lord's presence. See him be transformed and then repent. Amazing. The gospel, isn't it? And it says, then I will hear from heaven and I will forgive their sin and I will heal their land. If there's something we want. It's not just a personal revelation of this story. Yes, we need Jesus in our lives individually, but the greater call is to see him come to the land with which we dwell and that's what we're hungering for. It's a choice. And we believe that God is on the move the pendulum of revival. If you go study revival during lockdown, I got to listen to lots of podcasts. And there was an Australian guy, Mark Sayers and John Mark Comer. They were, they were talking at each other and they were talking about the history of revival throughout the nations. And guess what? Guess when revival comes, does it come to people who are close to Jesus? No, it comes to a nation that's far away from Jesus revival comes at some of the darkest hours of human history. I don't know where you think we are on that line of human history and how good or bad we're doing. I don't know. It's that, that God, God alone knows that. But I tell you, there is hope of renewal, hope of revival, not just for you, but for the nations as well because jesus' will prevails over my will and he's told us what he wants us to do.