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Well, it's good to see you.

If you have your Bibles, go ahead and grab them.

We're going to be in First John.

In fact, we are kicking off this morning seven weeks in this great book.

I have been eager to preach it. It is, it is kind of,

it falls into kind of what I, I feel like are my own strengths and my own kind of agitations,

and my own eagerness to see God at work in our day. And so first, John, it's going to put some weight on us,

but it's going to put some weight on us, I think, in the best possible way.

What I mean by that is if you're a Christian and you're following after the Lord

and it's imperfect and it's messy and you wish you were further along,

then this book is going to encourage your soul.

But if you're half-hearted, one foot in the church, one foot in the world, kind of laxadaisical in

your face, this book is going to punch you in the face over and over and over again,

where you have a heart that wants to know him. This book wants to encourage that in you,

and where you just kind of don't want to go to hell and you want to kind of be seen as a good

person, this book is going to be disruptive and confrontational.

And that's why I say, I kind of like that. And so what we're dealing with here is the Apostle John is an elderly man now.

He is of age. He's not quite boiled alive, survive it, go to Patmos, write Revelation old, but he's aging.

And he's in Ephesus, and there's this thing that's starting to happen in the first century church.

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