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Today, we're wrapping up our series, if you haven't been with us, The Last Kingdom.

And if at the end of today's message, you feel like you came in at the end of a movie, you came in at the end of a movie. You're not confused.

Having said that, here's my hope, and I've said this every week, my hope is that for the rest of your life, and for the rest of our lives, my hope is that we will never be able to unsee what the authors of the New Testament want us to see every time we open the New Testament.

And what they want us to see is that Jesus is Helchristus, that Jesus is the Christ, that Jesus is the Anointed One, that Jesus is king, God's final king. But, and this is, what I'm about to say is true for a lot of things.

So all of us have experienced this at some level. It is very difficult, sometimes impossible. It is difficult to recognize progress by looking around.

To appreciate progress, you have to look back. In fact,

sometimes the only way to find the courage to keep moving forward in an arena of life is to look

back and realize, oh, I have made some progress. Sometimes it's the only way to keep moving forward.

I'll tell you where I first learned this was from a man named Howard Bowen. Very good friend, a few years older than me. And when we started the church, Howard just committed to me. He said, Andy, I'm going to help you and help the team find a place to put this church. We didn't have any property. We didn't have any money. We didn't have any members. And Howard and I met with so many people. We traipsed around on all kinds

of properties, and people would find out we want to put a church there. It's like, ah, you know, if we don't know if we want to do that, you know, this went on and on and on. One time we were traipsing through the woods, and we got some sticker bushes. You know, there's, I don't know what you call them. There's the long sticker bushes with the stickers and you take it and you move past it

and then you let it go behind you. One time he let it go behind him, and it caught me right here, and he went on, I'm like, Howard, Howard, anyway, so we'd still laugh about that. And I would get kind of discouraged like, oh, this isn't, he would say, Andy, Andy, look, every once in a while, because he knew me. Every once in a while, you've got to stop, and you've got to look back. And that way you recognize the progress you've made, and in your case, our case, we recognize God's faithfulness that we're making progress, but as long as you're looking forward and there's so much to do and so much to accomplish, and I am terrible at celebrating wins. By the time we get to something, I'm already

way ahead in my mind, and it's hard for me to stop and just be in the moment sometimes, and Howard does it say, 80? Every once in a while, you've got to stop. You got to turn around and look back. To recognize God's faithfulness, that's how you're going to find the courage, and what you need to keep moving for him. I'm like, thank you, Howard. Please, please, please. Keep reminding me that.

And here's the thing, if you're a Christian, especially if you've been a Christian a long time.

You look around your community, you look around maybe your family, you look around what's happening in our nation, what's happening in our world, and then you think, really? Jesus is a king? There's like a kingdom? like he really came to plant kingdom of God on earth.

I don't see it. I don't see it making a difference. I don't think it's made a dent.

But when we stop and look back, when we stop and look back and remember where this whole thing started

and when this whole thing started and how this whole thing started and how this whole thing started

...