want to take a moment to focus on you, to throw off the things of the day, whatever distractions,

whatever weird things happened at work, whatever conflict, whatever things that consume our mind.

We want to let go of those things and focus on you because we really want for you,

through your word,

through the power of your spirit, to minister to us this evening. So God, please would you be

present and everything that is said and be honoured and do a great work in this place tonight.

In Jesus' name, amen. You know, we share this world with eight billion strangers,

and most of whom, most of whom whose beliefs and convictions are very different than what ours are. And out of those eight billion people,

340 million of them are here in America. And we're all trying to get along. We're all trying

to do life together. And it's clear that the ideologies, the politics, the morality, the spiritual convictions that people have are often in stark contrast to the things that we hold to.

And I think what is self-evident is that we're not really in sync with the culture,

which, by the way, is a good thing.

God has called us to not resemble the culture.

But somehow, despite these differences,

we're all striving to coexist.

We're all trying to get along with our fellow man,

while simultaneously maintaining very different worldviews.

Our values are different, our understanding of what is right and wrong is different,

our vision for how life, what, of what is right and wrong is different.

Our vision for how life,

what life should look like and how we should live,

it's very different to what maybe the culture holds to.

...