DEC 1 2024 | Shopping for Hope…Finding Faith S1E1 | Zechariah

Sea Change Church · DEC 1 2024 | Shopping for Hope...Finding Faith - S1E1: Zechariah
Luke 1:5-17
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

I want to pray for continued unity at our church, for guidance, and that we would be just in lockstep with each other, locking shields, and doing your work, Lord. We want to use every bit of today's offering. Please receive it and use it to expand your kingdom more. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. The Gospel according to Luke, chapter 1, verses 5 through 17.

In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah of the division of Abijah. And he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. And they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord. But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in years.

Now while he was serving as priest before God when his division was on duty, according to the custom of the priesthood, he was chosen by lot to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense. And the whole multitude of the people were praying outside at the hour of incense. And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense.

And Zechariah was troubled when he saw him, and fear fell upon him. But the angel said to him, And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. And he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.

This is the word of the Lord. This is the word of the Lord. Thank you. I said, I haven't. Surprise me. So I was just as surprised as you. Well done. Maybe you want to just go deck the halls and all that. Great to be here today. For all the family that is visiting us, you maybe never been here before, I want to welcome you on this Thanksgiving weekend as we head into the Advent season.

It's great to have you here. Let this be your Airbnb church, your home away from home church, and it's just great to have you all today. Before we get started and jump into this brand new series out of the book of Luke, looking at hope and faith, something that's really needed, I just want to welcome some new friends. Our denomination, we are American Baptists, if you don't know that.

We're part of the Northwest Conference. And they have joined a global missional outreach organization of many different denominations, all with one mindset, which is to evangelize the globe by 2035. And yeah, right? Let's go on that one, right? So we are about evangelism. We are a local church with a global mindset and a global heart. And God has been doing things.

He's opening up. He's opened up some areas in Africa for us to partner and be a part of. He's given us people who are releasing music, so hopefully you heard the new songs get released this week. But I want to welcome some friends that are particularly of import to us in reaching the Latino community here in San Diego and beyond. That is going to be one of our emphases in the new year.

And our partner with Ascent, this global outreach, is Alisio and Kathy Mejia. Mejia, I got it. Would you guys please stand? Would you welcome them as well? Alisio is a professor at Asbury Seminary where we just had that little revival thing that went on. If you heard about that, it was awesome. And we just hit it off. And so I invited him out. We're going to be in the next three days.

Some of the leaders from the church are going to be down at Harbor Island just going over our vision as we get ready for the member meeting and talking about 2025 and how God's expanding the kingdom here. And I just invited them out to sit and to talk. He began just to give just words from the Lord about our church and just stuff that really resonated.

So we are so honored to have you. We look forward to a great, let's move to 2035 and see this world get evangelized. So with that, let me just pray real quick. Lord Jesus, bless this time and this sermon. Bless our time together as you do good things in our church and in this season. In Jesus' name, amen. If you have your Bibles, open up to Luke 1, 5 through 17.

We're going to only get through, I think, verse 11 today. Starting a new series and it's called Shopping for Hope. That came from my mom. My mom and I were having some coffee and we were at Pete's one day and she just said, it seems like the world's just shopping for hope. And I was like, oh, I like that. You know, they are shopping for something.

And I said, but hopefully they're going to be finding faith in the midst of it. And so on that, I just, I gave it to Jeff. He's all, oh, I kind of like that. So it is about a world, perhaps ourselves, looking for hope. But hope is just an ingredient along the way to what we hope they actually find, which is faith. Faith in the coming Messiah. Faith in the resurrected Jesus.

Faith in a Jesus who will change your life, who will take his sins upon his shoulders and bleed his blood so that you won't have to, Jesus Christ that fulfills our hope and our destiny. I wrote in the, as the main point, before I give you the main point, this passage could easily, the main, you could have exegeted this passage as the restoration of the family.

If you look at John the Baptist, it says in the prophecy a little bit later in the passage that when the Gabriel angel comes, you'll hear about that next week, he says to his parents, this child's going to bring you joy. And I would say, if you're a high schooler in here right now and you're a kid or you're even a 35-year-old adult, our mission is to bring our parents joy.

We want to do the best thing we can to bless our parents. Bless your parents. Bless your parents. Reach out and care for your parents. We also see that Elijah comes in, excuse me, John the Baptist comes in the spirit of Elijah. Big name in the Old Testament. Elijah's a big name and he comes with power. He does big stuff, fire from heaven and all kinds of rad stuff.

So you expect if John the Baptist, which we'll talk about next week, is going to show up with the spirit of Elijah, he's going to be throwing spirit fireballs, right? It's not what he does. He shows up and he returns the hearts of the children to their parents. He brings people to repentance. He comes with the power of Elijah, but this time it's not a power of fire.

It's a power of repentance. It's a power of belief. It's a power of restoration and reconciliation. So that's just a teaser for next week, but it is hope for the family. But I did say that the main point here today is this, is that hope is the fuel of destiny. Hope is an ingredient of faith, right? Faith is made up of many ingredients. You are not saved by hope.

Hope. You're not saved by joy. You're not saved by kindness, happiness, any of the other perhaps beatitudes. We are saved by one thing. It is faith alone in Jesus Christ. But the fuel of faith is hope. You are hoping for something and faith is what you use to hold on to until you can see. Faith is something that is a substance. It says it's a substance.

It's not invisible quality. It's a substance. It actually exists, the scripture says. It exists. It is a substance that it says that will lead us to salvation, but it has ingredients. And one of those ingredients is hope. And I just want to challenge you, if you've lost your hope, now is a season to restore that hope. Jesus is in the business of restoration.

Hope for your marriage. Hope for your family relationships. Hope for your nations. Hope for the poor. Hope for your broken heart. Hope, hope, hope. Because hope is an ingredient that leads to faith. And faith leads us to salvation. And so if you could put anything, you could say hope is the fuel of destiny. Hope is the ingredient of faith. I use the word destiny because hope is often associated with expectation, faith, and a vision for a better future.

It provides motivation. It provides direction. This is what hope does. It provides, you will be driven in your daily actions by what has root in your heart. If it is bitterness, don't be surprised if bitterness comes out in your worst moments. You hear people say all the time, I did this thing. That wasn't me. If you did it, it's probably you. I mean, okay, maybe once on a one-off.

But most of the things I do, I realize is actually who I am. And sometimes I don't always like who I am. Right? The other thing I said is this idea of destiny. That if it's destiny, you think it's preordained. That if it's a destiny, how can hope be a fuel of destiny if God's completely in charge? There's all these ifs and conjunctions of like but in the Bible that says if you do this, I'll do this.

Yes, God has a greater destiny. But along the way, he can reroute us along the way. He's going to get you if you believe in him to salvation in heaven with him. But I believe there is a myriad of possibilities, to use a Thanksgiving analogy, a cornucopia of possibilities along that way. And so hope will lead you somewhere. If you have lost the ingredient of hope, it's going to be hard to move to faith and faith leads to salvation.

Not just salvation in Christ, but salvation of the things that matter most to your heart. Re-up hope. Begin to hope again. Begin to add that. Historically speaking, let's just jump into this passage. I love this passage. It is one of these passages. My wife does this. She'll circle a word and then she'll draw a line out and she'll start finding all the places that it can spider web into.

This passage is rich. Now, if you search this passage, I don't want you to search it right now as we're going through it. So if you have chat on your phone, if you got some Google, just hang out, go home and check it. But I want to show a few things that are happening. First of all, here's the first thing. It starts out. In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah.

Let's stop right there. I want to say in the days of Herod. The days of Herod were a politically fraught time. It was a difficult time. There was a lot of activity. There was fears of invasion. Rome had already been there. There were still some fears that, you know, Rome was kind of maybe moving to the end of its days. Had a couple, maybe a couple more hundred years.

But its glory days were behind it about 75 years before that. And you began to see the Romans doing what they always do. They find someone in a country they've overtaken who they can set up as a puppet government. Someone that they can control. Someone that was just maybe, you know, Babylonian enough to be accepted by the Babylonian people and to be ruled by them.

Or they were just, you know, maybe Macedonian enough. And so Herod, the king, King Herod, who would be dead within a few years of Jesus. There was other Herods. There's another Herod at Jesus' death that's of his lineage. Evil family, bad family. Herod was this puppet king. He was partially Jewish, but he wasn't fully Jewish. He was of a mixed descent, which is something in regard to being a sovereign ruler of the Jewish people didn't really work.

If you know, he came, he was an Edomite. He came from the line of Esau. Now maybe you've heard of Esau. There's this one scripture, it's really, really difficult. It says, Jacob I loved. Esau I didn't like so much. Actually it says he hated him. God says that. We can get into what that means. Maybe when we get back into Genesis in January we can talk about that.

But Esau and Jacob were these two brothers, right? They were the child of Isaac. And they went different ways. One followed God, one didn't. Herod was a descendant of Esau. He was a descendant of Esau and he was ruling there. It says Herod was an Edomite by descent. He was a descendant of Esau and their territory was south of Judea. Just off center.

Not in Jerusalem. Just off center. You see, you know what he was? He was a replica king. You know what Satan loves? He loves giving you a replica instead of the real thing. Wants to give you a replica hope. Put your hope in something that really won't satisfy. He wants to give you a replica relationship with your wife. He wants to give you a plan B that isn't as good as plan A.

But you'll take plan B because at least it's a plan and you haven't had a plan until now. And so here he puts him up. And you know what is so interesting? He was actually called king of the Jews. I've heard that term before. Maybe you have as well. If you come back at Easter, you're going to hear it again. Because above Jesus, they put a nail in a tablet that they put above Jesus or a scroll that said, Jesus, king of what?

King of the Jews. Because he is the real king of the Jews. And there was a replica king. Satan is always wanting replicas in your life. Can you point them out now as I speak? Can you think about the things right now? That's replica. But I like it because at least it's tangible. Idols were replicas. Satan wants to give you second best. Second best is good enough.

You know what second best is? Last. Losing. God wants to give you his best plan. His best plan. And we see that as where? Not a replica. He was also known. We know that Herod was known for the murder of the innocents. He killed the children. He took the children from the babies from the wombs of their mothers trying to kill Jesus. Trying to kill the Messiah.

And he died an incredibly horrible death. Gangrenous ulcers in his stomach. He has itching skin condition. Paranoia. He died an incredibly horrible death. It doesn't seem that Jesus or God himself likes ripping babies from their wombs. And so he has a consequence that he pays and he is replaced. The next we see is Zechariah and Elizabeth. An amazing family.

I said this is an amazing family. Let me just read this right now from halfway through verse 5. Zechariah, the division of Abijah, was from the division of Abijah. Circle Abijah. It's important. He had a wife from the daughters of Aaron. Circle daughters of Aaron. Those are two important. Her name was Elizabeth. Beautiful name. I love that name. And they were both righteous before God.

They walked blamelessly. Circle blamelessly. In all their commandments and statutes of the Lord. Here's the first thing that we see. Had you circle two names. Both Zechariah and Elizabeth become the parents of John the Baptist. They were both from priestly lines. Their family had a priestly anointing over it. Although hers was a stronger line. Actually back to the daughters of Aaron.

He was through a subdivision of priests through Abijah that King David set up. King David set up 24 divisions of priests to care for the temple. And they were, you know, many of them were good. Many of them were bad. But one was Abijah. And this is where Zechariah comes through. But his wife comes from a daughters of Aaron. A stronger descendant class.

I want to encourage you parents and people that are in marriages. You have a priestly calling over your family. You might not come from the daughters of Aaron. You might come from the daughter of Ted or, you know, or Tina or whatever it is. Different name. Whatever your parents' names are. But God has a calling on you to act as priest over your family.

And it is a responsibility that if we get serious about it, it's going to change your family. That's a prayer covering over your family. That's a prayer covering over your spouse. And if you're dating, you can start that as a dating couple. You can, men, you can treat that woman with respect, like the Bible says, like a sister. You can pray over her.

You can cover her. And you can respect and honor her with dignity and act as if a priest. Women, you can do some of the same things. But you begin to have that relationship. Because oftentimes the relationship you date with will have roots in your marriage. And you want to set good seed in fertile ground. That's the first thing we see. They had a dual priestly heritage.

The sacredness of divine purpose on their family. Making their son, John the Baptist, uniquely positioned to serve as a forerunner of the Messiah. I will say that if you are a priest of your family, not always. But often if you have children, they will return, as it says, to the faith if they ever do go away. But oftentimes you can raise children that actually proclaim Messiah and act as a priest over the territory that God has given them.

I've seen that over and over again. I've seen kids in our youth group right now that are running faith club all over their campuses. And God has given them authority because I've seen that priestly understanding and calling in their families. This is a restoration of the family. This is hope for the family. And if you've lost that hope and you don't see that, I want to encourage you to rebuild that hope.

To rekindle that hope and to want that for the family. Abijah is the priestly heritage that Zechariah comes from. And Abijah means my father is Yahweh. My father is Yahweh. Now, obviously he is not the father of Jesus. But it is interesting and I don't think by coincidence. And this could be one of those lines that you circle around Abijah. And you could write it out and you could start listing Abijah and following him.

And King Abijah. There is a deep rabbit warren that you can go down in this passage that is so rich. It is so rich. But it is not by chance that he comes from a priestly line. And then he is the forerunner to the Messiah. His son will be the forerunner to the Messiah. And that that Abijah word means Yahweh is my father. Is Yahweh your father? You see, we live different when we know who our father is.

We live different when we have fathers that we know protect us and care for us. Yahweh is my father. It's not a bad line to start the morning with, is it? Yahweh is my father and I have hope in his son, Jesus Christ, for the hope of my family. It might be off the rails at the moment, but God is going to bring, he's going to fix it in the morning.

We believe over and over again of these things. Let's go to verse 6 because they're in a dark place. This family is not just perfect family. Verse 6, you see they have some headwinds. They have some challenges. Verse 6, and they were both righteous before God. And that means righteous in the day. The Jewish term doesn't mean they were perfect. It means righteous according to the people that they were living near.

Let me stop right there before I go in on verse 6. Where have we heard this before? A few weeks ago, there was a guy named Job. We just finished a series on him. And he was righteous among the people. And God did a powerful work in his life. Before that, and maybe a couple of Januaries ago, because January is when we get back into, January, February, we get back into the Old Testament narrative of Genesis.

Genesis, there's another one who had that same thing said about him. His name was Noah. And if you are to go back, go forward into the book of Hebrews in chapter 11, you'll begin to read a litany, a host of people and of the faith who lived according to righteousness. And God, it says, saved them, protected them, did miracles through them. Living blamelessly matters.

We're only blameless because of the blood of Jesus. I know that. Man, man, just get me at a girls' basketball game for my daughter, and I know that I need some sin that is taken care of. I was just cheering. I don't do anything too bad, but I'm just like, I'm yelling. And my daughter's like, dude, settle down. I'm like, ah, okay. She gave me, you know what this is?

It's called Quiet Coyote. Do the parents know what that is? If you're a parent. In class, it's called Quiet Coyote. I was like, you guys got to talk on defense. She came over to the sideline. She went like this. I said, rock and roll, kid, okay. You know what it's like when your daughter comes to the sideline and looks at you and does Quiet Coyote to you like you're a six-year-old?

That was embarrassing. I was embarrassed. I woke up four in the morning. I was thinking about it. I was embarrassed. I got Quiet Coyote-ed by my daughter last night, nonetheless. They're in darkness. Verse six. And they were both righteous. They were walking blamelessly in all the commandments and the statutes of the Lord. They were doing the best they could.

And then in verse seven, you see those headwinds. But they had no child. Because Elizabeth was barren. And they were both advanced in years. Now, you can see that as like just their own individual story. Or you can see it as a metaphor for where the entire spiritual community was to that point. After 400 years of silence. You see, the book of Malachi ends and begins a 400-year period where God stops speaking.

He closes his mouth. I wouldn't say he closes his heart. But perhaps he shields his heart for just a moment. And for 400 years, a lot longer than this country has existed. For 400 years, God was silent. But the giant was waking up. The giant of God's love was beginning to stir. And he was beginning to speak to people. And so God put them in a position that was an exact representation of where they were living and the people that they were living with.

They'd grown long in the truth. They had no children. They were barren. They had no one to care for them as they got old. They were in a difficult position. But God hadn't forgotten them. And what I think is so amazing is that through their righteousness, when we are righteous, God doesn't forget. And God moves. And God moves in their family in a powerful way.

Now, we're going to see that he has a hard time believing it. We're going to talk about that next week. Sometimes God offers you stuff. It's like, I'm still not believing in God. Like, we get so entrenched in our lack of hope. It becomes like a drug. You ever met that person? It's like just negative, down. It just becomes like something they feed on.

You can just keep feeding on that. And so Zechariah, the angel, says, well, you're not going to talk for a while. We're going to make you silent for a while. Your wife, she can keep talking. But you can't. And so we'll see that next week. But we see this timing. I wrote this in the notes. I think it's in your notes. Zechariah and Elizabeth's stories reminds us that God's timing is perfect.

Amen. Say perfect. Say perfect. Perfect. That's right. God's timing is what? Let's say it one more time. God's timing is what? All right. Let's go. We got everybody saying it at that time. Often working through seasons of waiting to fulfill his promises in ways that surpass our understanding. If you didn't see it, because it says that they were praying.

It says that he answered their prayers, right? I have a feeling they weren't praying for the answer they got. You see, God answered bigger than they were asking. This is huge. You can pray for a loaf of bread and God's like, hey, I've got a bakery. I want you to know about this bakery. So they're praying. What were they probably praying for? God, we pray for a son.

I have a feeling that they had stopped praying. I didn't have a feeling. I have a feeling that these were prayers prayed in the silence, like Danny says in her song, but God would lead us out of those prayers into, remember, triumph. The prayers prayed in the silence will lead us into triumph. These are prayers that they had forgotten. They had become old.

They had become broken. They had become stale. But God did not forget. He never forgets a prayer. And God begins to answer the prayer. And this is why he can't even believe it when Zechariah hears it. When an angel comes and speaks to him, he can't even believe it. But God acts and does what he says. He gave them more than they were asking. Zechariah and Elizabeth were only asking for a baby.

But God gave them more than they were asking. A son, a precursor to the Messiah, born in the spirit of Elijah, who would be a great joy to set an entire nation on the road to repentance. Amen? And we're going to become an amen church. Chris said that, right, church? Yeah, thank you, Chris. Give me an amen, Chris. Thank you. He's going to start with us.

I'm going to read that again. That is so good. How good is that? Zechariah and Elizabeth were only, it's only, asking for a baby. But God gave them more than they were asking for. A son, a precursor to the Messiah, born in the spirit of Elijah, who would be a great joy to them and set an entire nation on the road to repentance. And I could have added restoring the hearts of the children to their parents.

That's a big deal. Imagine if the hearts of our children were restored back to their parents. Now, a lot of kids got some issues because there's been brokenness in their families. And they have a right to be angry. It's hard to say that. And if you were raised in a broken family, you understand that I was. And many of you have been as well. There's orphans that are here that were cast aside.

There's a reason for that. But God's bigger than that. And you don't need to walk in shame because of the brokenness of your own personal humanity. We need to walk in the hope of that restoration. And no one's here to club you with a stick, but to bring you hope of restoration. Because there was issues back in their day as well. And he said that John the Baptist is going to come, and he's going to restore the hearts of their children to their parents.

Imagine if that happened in our society. Imagine. I mean, seriously. Can you imagine what it would look like in America if all of a sudden the hearts of the children and the families were restored? We need to pray for that. Because that is the hope of John the Baptist. Go to verse 8 and 9. Talking about God's timing as we come in for a landing here.

Verse 8 and 9. Now while he was serving as priest before God, when the division was on duty, according to the custom of the priesthood, that's the one I told you about, the 24 priesthood divisions that David set up, he was chosen by lots, circle lots, to enter the temple and to burn incense. I love this, that while Zechariah faithfully served in the routine of his duty, God broke through the monotony with a moment of divine destiny.

We underestimate the mundane. We underestimate finding God along the way. Like I said last week, we spend very little time at the destination. The majority of the time is along the way. And so he's just being faithful. This is a faithful couple. Parents, I want to encourage you. Be faithful. You only have, we call them tuck-tucks. I'm going to tuck my daughters in at night.

I knew I only had so many tuck-tucks. Only had so many. Right? Because it's creepy if my daughter's 23 and I'm coming in for a tuck-tuck. So I knew there was going to be a time there where we're going to go to like back rub, and then I'm tapping out. One of them's married, she's gone. Not knocking on the door at 10. Hey, I'm back here for tuck-tucks.

It's a weird dad. I knew I only had so many. I didn't miss many. I missed hardly any. And this week, I missed a meeting because my daughter's game got changed. And my wife said, you're not going to go to that meeting? I said, nope. I don't miss my daughter's games. I don't miss my kids' games. Only so many. On and on. We only have so much. And we do this in the routine.

And in the routine, you find the glory. Your kids are going to know when you show up. If you had a parent who didn't show up, you'll know it. You'll know it. And in the routine of just being who they were, righteous people, godly people, showing up over and over again, baking the bread, lighting the incense, putting out the showbread, over, here we go again, chosen by lot.

Was that by a mistake or was that by destiny? You see, God orchestrates time. And when the lot was cast, God just said, no, the lot goes to Zechariah this time. Because he's from the lineage of Abijah. And Abijah means Yahweh is my father and I will have it the way I will have it when I will have it my way because I am God. God does that with your life as well.

When we walk faithfully with God. But do you want plan B? I want plan B so much. I love plan B. You know why? Plan B is easy. Plan B gives you what you want when you want it. You can control plan B. Let me tell you something about God's plan A. You can never control it. You can just set yourself up for it. You can never control it. You can just set yourself up for it.

Let me just read it again. While Zechariah served faithfully in the temple, in the routine of duty, God broke through the monotony with a moment of divine destiny. Last thing. Verse 10. Multitudes matter. And it says in verse 10, see something was changing in Israel. Something was changing. 400 years of silence. They were tired. They wanted a breakthrough.

And it says, and the whole multitude of people were praying outside as he was in the temple at the hour of the incense. The whole multitude of praying. I wonder how long it had been since there had been a multitude there. I bet there was years. People just wondered about what's going on in there. In that temple. Oh, I hear they do stuff in there.

But this time there was a multitude of people and they were praying. Multitudes matter. When enough people, God shows us over and over again in the scripture, when enough people get a heart for something, when enough people get a heart to evangelize the nation by 2035 or whatever that thing is, God starts to pay attention. He listens to his people.

And as we saw last week, when we call out to God, God often gives us an audience with him. The prayers prayed in the silence will lead us out into triumph as we pray. There's three practical takeaways before we have our communion. First is this. Get on mission. This is a family on mission. If you're not on mission, find your family mission. Get on mission.

Find out what you're all about. Can't all be about just fun, vacation. That's some of it, maybe. Get on mission. Who are you caring about as a family? Give your family a purpose bigger than your family. Give your, sacrifice your time with your family. Show up. Feed the poor. Whatever, you do what you do. Go to Africa as a family. Maybe that's out of your reach.

Go to San Diego. Hand out blankets. Care for your neighbor. You know how many lonely, rich people sit alone in this city? There is an epidemic in La Jolla of loneliness and brokenness and fear. I see it all the time. Find your mission as a family. Get on mission. Be a family on mission. We're doing a marriage conference this year. It's not going to be about fixing your marriage.

It's about getting on mission. There's enough conferences on how to fix your marriage. You go to that one. Okay? Maybe you need it. That might be the one you go to. We'll give you the book. Read the book. This is about people who want to be proactive, who say, we want the next step. Because we're working on our marriage. We're doing the things we need to do.

We want the next step. Because otherwise, we just kind of just circle the drain of survival in our marriage. Right? We need marriages and relationships that go to the next level. And if you're dating, you can do the same thing in a righteous way. You can be on mission as a couple, and it will have roots into your marriage. Number two, don't despise the duty.

Oh, you can despise that ride to work. You can despise going to that cubicle. I did 10 years a cubicle, right? Associate pastor cubicle. I had a cubicle. Adam, you're not at your desk. Where are you? Here's the text. I'm hiding from you, boss. That's where I am. I'd leave the computer open, just make it look like I was there. Maybe I was in the bathroom.

I'm just playing. I kind of did that sometimes. Don't despise the duty. Sometimes I just despise the duty. It's in the walk. It's in going home. It's at the store. It's buying the turkey, not eating the turkey sometimes. You know what I mean? It's in the store. It's the way you talk to people. It's the way you love people. Just yesterday, I used one of the things.

These ladies were making Starbucks. I went and got a, I'm a sucker for the creme brulee latte. I just, I love it. I love it. And the one I get is like seven bucks, right? And it's a lot of money. But I've been going every few days to get one. And I stopped and I said to them, I said, ladies, I just, they were busy too. I said, I just want to thank you.

Like you guys made such a great drink. And I said, it matters. I said, sometimes I'm just down and I come in and it makes my day. And you guys, maybe you don't understand what you're doing. Like I know you think you're, maybe you're just making drink. They stopped. They were attentive, right? It was like, you know, like something was coming from Mars and it showed up in front of them.

They were like looking at me like, what? And I, and this one gal teared up and I said, thank you so much. She got tears in her eyes. And it was just, I was just trying to do what I tell, I want to live the sermon too. I mean, I'm preaching to myself all the time. I'm preaching to myself. I'm preaching to you. And as I began to speak, it was just amazing.

And she came over afterwards. She said, thank you so much. That was something that really made our day. Little things like that. It is in the monotony. Do not despise the duty. And then finally, cultivate a community. Cultivate a community. We see that multitude there. Do you have a multitude? I will say I'm part of a small group in this church. If you're not part of a small group of some kind, a volunteer small group or something, get involved in one.

I'm in an incredible community that cares for me, that prays for me. And I actually wrote it. They were all busting out happy Thanksgiving to each other. There were probably 20 of us in the group, 17 of us, all families. We all pray for each other's kids. We all have kids in the youth groups. That's kind of the group that I'm a part of. And I just said, you know what?

Thank you for letting me be somewhere that I said where a pastor and his wife can feel like they can be authentic. And it's very rare that you can find that. And so to have that and as a group, find your multitude. Who's your multitude? Who prays for you? Who shows up for you? And who do you show up for? Because a multitude isn't all about taking.

It's about being a part of that. Three things. Get on mission. Don't despise the duty. Cultivate the community. Next week, Gabriel shows up, starts talking about this kid that's going to be born, starts talking to Zechariah, and they start getting after it because that boy makes a difference in the world. Amen? Amen. Let's stand. We're going to have Joe come forward for our communion.

Yep, got you. Part of a congregation where the pastor loves the word of God and loves Jesus. So thank you, Pastor Adam. Once a month, our congregation celebrates communion, the Lord's Supper. And Jesus said some weighty words. He says, eat my body, drink my blood. And that wasn't literal. It was metaphorical. It was very serious. And when we do this together, I'm going to read the Gospels, we are saying we are made in the image of God, but we're born in sin, and we need a Savior.

And we need to take him in. Inside of us, that symbol. And it fuels us. And it can reset us to go, we're all part of the same body. Corporate yet one. Let me read the scripture. And administrative, you're going to come up after I read the scripture. Take the elements. Sit down. Do your work with the Lord. And then we'll take it together. Okay? So let me read God's word.

The Lord Jesus, on the night of his arrest, he took bread. And after giving thanks to God, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, take and eat it. This is my body given for you. Do this in remembrance of me. And in the same way, he took the cup, saying, this cup is the new covenant, sealed in my blood, shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.

Whenever you drink it, do this in remembrance of me. Every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the saving death of the risen Lord until he comes. If you want to celebrate our risen Lord, come and take the elements. All my words are short. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. How could I express all my gratitude?

I could sing this song, as I often do. Every song must end. And you will never do. So I throw up my hands. Praise you again and again. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. And I know it's not much. But I'm nothing else fit for a king. Except for a heart singing hallelujah, hallelujah. Hallelujah. One more spot.

I've got just one room. With my arms just wide. I will worship you. So I throw my hands and praise you again and again. Because all that I have is a hallelujah, hallelujah. Hallelujah. And I know it's not much. I've nothing else meant for a king. Except for a heart singing hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. All my words are short.

I've got nothing new. How could I express all my gratitude? I could sing these songs as I often do. Every song must sing. And you never do. So I throw up my hands and praise you again and again. Because all that I have is a hallelujah, hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. And I know it's not much. I have nothing else meant for a king. Except for a heart singing hallelujah.

Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. And I know it's not much. I know it's not much. So beautiful. I almost started crying. I don't know why, but maybe I do know why. Is it so many people coming up that love Jesus? You know, I want to remember the Savior that loved me so much that he died and rose again and intercedes.

And we take this together. We're one family. So Jesus says, take and eat. This is my body given for you. Do this in remembrance of me. Let's take together. And he took the cup. He says, whenever you drink this, do this in remembrance of me. Let us drink together. Let us pray. Gracious God, may we who have received this sacrament live in the unity of your Holy Spirit, that we may show forth your gifts to all the world.

We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ. And all God's people said? Amen. Let us stand and recite and pray the Lord's Prayer. And then Pastor Adam will give a blessing afterwards. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us.

And lead us not in temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. Joe, appreciate you, man. This guy's got a heart that is so huge for people. Dude, I mean, just unbelievable. And I love surrounding myself with people like that. Really appreciate. I just want to say how much I appreciate. I'm so really thankful for you and what you do at our church.

So thank you. And that was beautiful. If you need prayer, we want to be that multitude for you. Most every Tuesday, I'm there praying with a group of people who pray for your prayers. If you need prayers, put a prayer request in. Or come forward. We want to start. We have oil. We can anoint you for healing. We have elders that are up here, prayer warriors that are up here.

We want to pray for you. This next, you got what, 24 days to Christmas Eve where you can really lean into some restoration. Maybe you need restoration. It could be physical health, whatever it is. We want to pray. We want to surround that in prayer. Come forward for prayer. Find your multitude. And just for some of you, I felt like there was a word.

Some of you, there's a phone call that you do. It might not be this afternoon, all emotional. You might need to think it out a little bit. But there's a phone call to someone in your family that needs to happen. And pray through it. Maybe it needs to be inculcated with a few weeks of prayer before you make that call. But I just want to put that on there.

We're going to be there to support you. We're going to be praying for that, for that restoration. If you extend your hands, I want to bless you today. Lord, we thank you for this congregation, what you're doing, Jesus. Lord, we just thank you for you expanding it from just a little local church with a global heart. We thank you, God, for bringing the Ascent group here with us.

And we pray for these next three days as well. You bless our ministry as we look forward for the vision. But we pray for these people. We bless them, God, with the spirit of reconciliation. That Elijah spirit still exists. And we pray for the repercussions of it to be released and unleashed and unbound in our families. Lord God, a lot of people have hurt and pain that needs to be dealt with.

They have anger that needs to be dealt with and reconciled by the cross, by the blood. We pray that you would give them the ability to do that. To start the road maybe to forgiveness or being forgiven. And Lord God, we bless the families. We bless the relationships. We bless the dating relationships. And we bless these people today that they go out in the power of the spirit of your name, of the Holy Spirit.

In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. God bless you. We love you. Have a great Christmas as we come up. God bless you.