Hey South, and this fall has already been a really exciting season for our church. As we continue to step into what's next, we want to keep creating simple ways for all of us to grow in our faith. That's why we're launching a new podcast called The Cutting Room Floor. Each week, one of our teachers is going to sit down with a host and just unpack some of what got left behind, literally on the cutting room floor from the weekend.

Might be a verse we didn't have time to cover, a story we didn't have time to share, or a thought we just wanted to develop further.

So whether you're driving to work, leading a group, or just looking to take another step, we hope this gives you a simple way to keep growing.

You don't need to subscribe to anything new.

The cutting room floor will show up in the same Southam podcast feed you already follow, or you can just head over to

southend dot church forward slash podcasts, and we can't wait to share it with you on September

the 24th. See you then. Well, good morning, everyone. I want to acknowledge the irony of our series title that we've been working through these past several weeks. It's called the elephant in the room. And the reality is this. There's a massive elephant in the room, not only in our church and across our campuses, but across our country right now. And it's simply this. The world we live in is evil. And the world we live in

is sin saturated, and our only hope is Jesus. Things are not as they should be. And what I mean by

that is specifically this. Kids should be able to go to school without being afraid. Young women should be able to get on

subway trains without being murdered. Young fathers and husbands should be free to express their

political beliefs and their faith in Jesus without being assassinated. And the only way back is

repentance. The only way back is repentance, which requires individual hearts to recognize the evil that we face.

Make no mistake.

We have a choice in front of us right now.

Christ or chaos.

Life or death.

And this is not new.

Prophet Isaiah said it this way.

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil

who put darkness for light and light for darkness.

It's an ancient story being replayed again and again and again.

So here's why we're here today. We need to hear from God, don't we? And so we're going to unpack his word here in a moment

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