It's Going to...Reign Malachi 3;7-4:6; Luke 1:13-17

Good morning, good morning, and good morning!

Good morning, here we are ready to reach the heights in Jesus.

We're gonna pray together just shortly.

I want to remind you that next Sunday will be different.

Next Sunday will be gratitude Sunday.

We'll be meeting in this room just like normal,

that part of it the same.

We'll be worshiping God, the same God,

the God who's creator of the universe,

in charge of all things.

But we will be worshiping him with a focus on gratitude.

So everything in our service will be about gratitude.

And to do that, to be grateful to God,

we need to do that together as a group.

And together we prepare.

And so for this coming week,

we want you to be focused on gratitude.

What reasons have you to be grateful for God?

How are you grateful to God?

And then as we worship this coming week,

we will have a song or two,

and then a break where we will have people

have an opportunity to present.

So you might have a song yourself

that you would sing especially for the congregation.

If you're gonna do that,

I would ask you to write away this week,

get ahold of Brother Tim and Leeching

and get that scheduled so we know that's coming.

And you might also have a poem that you'd like to share

or something you read out of a devotional book

or your own story or what you're grateful for.

You might wanna give us a list

of things you're grateful for.

Perhaps you'd prepare a craft.

I know that the Little Wonders are preparing a craft today

that if they are courageous,

they will next week share in those sharing times.

And we will work through our services that day,

just like that.

And then at the end,

we will have a brief message about gratitude from the Bible

and what we will be together as a group the whole time.

Okay, so all kids, teens, and adults will be in this room

and we'll have constant activities going on.

And so I ask you to think this week

about how you're grateful to God,

what God has done for you and come prepared to share.

And you can do multiple things.

You could do a craft and then you could explain

why I made this craft, because,

or we could just display it for you

if you don't wanna talk about it.

And then later in the service,

you might say, this is my testimony.

This is how God has blessed me

and share what you're grateful for.

Or you might say, I have a song

and later I'll talk about a craft.

Or you might have two or three things, right?

If you're a speaker, if you're a preacher or a teacher

and the Lord is leading you to do that,

you're on a five minute time limit.

Okay, you don't have to tell us what it's about in advance.

It should be about gratitude in some way,

but you will be timed five minutes max,

because that way there are several of us in the room

who love the Lord and would speak on behalf of the Lord

and would share a testimony and you'll be limited to that.

Okay, and then I'm just kind of warning you now,

if we get through that first three quarters of the service

and we don't get a lot of folks sharing testimony,

sharing what they made, what they did, grateful to God,

then that'll just make the sermon a little longer

when the time comes, okay?

So we're prepared to make sure we give God the glory

that and share the gratitude.

Really, we just gotta remember how grateful we are.

It began with him, it all began with him

long before you and I were ever here.

And he did it all, he provided it all,

and yeah, he's working in us now, we're grateful, okay?

So we're gonna pray together.

So I'm gonna ask Brother Mike Brister,

would you lead us in our opening prayer today?

And then let's pray along with Mike

and then we'll work with God some more.

Brother God, we wanna thank you for this day,

thank you for the sunshine, thank you for this place.

God, I pray for you to go to our service,

bless our time together,

pray to lift our voices in you,

bless our time together, you too, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I love you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'll give you all my worship.

I'll give you all my praise.

Oh Lord, I long to worship.

You alone are worthy of my praise.

You alone are worthy of my praise.

With all of my body.

I with my corpse.

We can do all of our things

We can go all the way

We can go all the way

All the way

We can go all the way

We can do everything

We can do everything

I will give it all to you

And I will trust you

I will give you all my love

I will give you all my worship

I will give you all my praise

You're not alone to worship

You're not worthy of my praise

Worthy of my praise

I will worship you

In everything I do

I will give you all my worship

I will give you all my praise

You're not alone to worship

You're not worthy of my praise

I will give you all my worship

I will give you all my praise

You're not alone to worship

You're not worthy of my praise

It's that inspirational moment in time

It's that moment in time where we ask ourselves, how has the Lord been working this past week?

What did you see? What did you hear? What did you discover in the Word?

Or maybe there was a moment where the Holy Spirit said, hey, just pay attention to that, I want you to see that

What do you got? Chris?

Last week I was invited down to Allen Correctional Facility in Lyme, Ohio

To be the guest speaker, the honored speaker down there to beg with

And usually I don't write speeches

They said, oh, you gotta have some for ten minutes, I'm like, I don't write speeches

Of course down there you're not allowed to take your paperwork in, so the speech would have done me any good anyway

So I get down there and what inspired me was just the love that the guys showed