Promising Perspectives Matt 1:13-2:7, Isaiah 7: 14, Mika 5:2, Isaiah 9:6, Luke 3:16-17

I'm humbled by your great sacrifice through Jesus your Son.

Lord, I'm grateful to be an heir, a joint heir with Jesus.

That every blade of grass in the new heaven and the new earth,

that every great moment of peace is ours to have.

And this was because you loved us. You're pleased with us.

Even though we screwed up, even though we sinned against you, you love us.

You wanted us to be in relationship with you.

And so you began the process from the moment of creation.

And it's been ongoing.

And many have come into a right relationship with you and many have not.

Lord, I pray that we will all be those that have.

Help us, Lord.

It would be so easy to be distracted by the bright lights,

the gift-giving and receiving, the rituals that surround this season.

Lord, it's easy to be wrapped up in anger, disagreement.

People get wrapped up in the political or the sports stuff or the money stuff.

Lord, there's a lot of things in this life that would drag us away from what's really important.

And it's so easy.

Bless you.

And Father, do bless us.

Do bless us as we seek you again today to reach new heights in Jesus.

I pray for those who are trying to be here this morning.

Father, I pray for Kim as she's worshiping in her church this morning.

And she said they'd be praying for us and we're praying for them, Lord.

We ask you to lift them up and help them glorify you and hear from you.

And the same for us.

We turn it over to you.

You're in charge.

We recognize that.

Whatever we've screwed up, whatever we've done, however we've gotten in the way,

it's time for us to get out of the way, Lord.

Let you do what you want to do.

We commend this service into your hands.

In Jesus' name, Amen.

All right, we're going to stand and sing some Christmas songs.

I need some percussion help up here.

Christmas with the sway bells.

Come on.

Come get it.

You want to make rhythm?

Yeah.

Go get it.

Go get it.

Go get it.

Go get it.

Go get it.

Go get it.

Go get it.

Go get it.

Go get it.

Go get it.

Go get it.

Go get it.

Go get it.

Go get it.

Go get it.

Go get it.

All right?

You should know what to do.

All right.

Stand up, middle section.

Come on.

On feet.

Let's go.

It's not about you.

Let's go.

What you want, it's about people.

Joy to the world.

The Lord is come.

Oh, this God that earth received her King

Oh, every God prepare the truth

And heaven and nature sing

And heaven and nature sing

And heaven and nature sing

To the eyes of Savior, great God

Where there's no other God

He's the King of the earth

He's the King of the earth

We bring the sound of your voice

We bring the sound of your voice

We bring the sound of your voice

Jesus Christ, Lord of hosts,

Hallelujah, Son of God,

Hallelujah, Glory be to God

Hallelujah, Glory be to God

Hallelujah

Jesus Christ, the mercy and trust

Hallelujah, of the world that I defy

Hallelujah, in the high and tell the truth

Hallelujah, the hero, the proud and the mean

Hallelujah, Glory be to God

Don't stop Emperor

It ain't recognize it now

Okay.

Alright.

What have you been reading?

What have you been seeing?

It's the Christmas season.

We had an interesting discussion on Tuesday night about Christmas carols, and every time

one comes on the radio, if you get one of my two favorite radio stations on, it's about

all they're playing is Christmas songs.

And every time one comes on, I keep thinking about how some of the lyrics in there are

biblical or follow the Bible account, and some of them sometimes don't.

And I wondered how somebody would write a Christmas song that doesn't follow what the

Bible says, and it becomes so popular for a hundred years, and I think a lot of people

sing things that they don't really know what they're singing, that kind of thing.

So I've been inspired a number of ways this week.

How about you?

What have you seen?

What have you heard?

What have you read?

What has God said?

Jason.

So the past couple of weeks, my family has been not doing so well.

We've been sick for a while.

We've been sick for a while.

And what that brought to me is that God makes us sick so we can take time to relax, crazy,

and spend time with the family that we have.

Because we don't know how long we're going to have before we're not going to be able

to see them again.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's the point.

I'm not sure God makes us sick, but I actually know what you're saying.

Okay?

That's good work.

Yes, very good.

Go ahead.

I have a reading plan in my Bible ad about Christmas songs.

I'm reading a lot of Christmas songs.

And the one yesterday was about Gotal on the Mountain.

And I did not know that Gotal on the Mountain was written about slaves and finding joy in

the hope in Christ, even though their life is horrible.

It's very difficult.

And so the devotion then was talking about even when life is hard and things are not

going your way, there's still joy in Christ and joy in the Christmas season because of

the Christmas season.

And so we need to look at Christ and we need to look to those things.

That's a good word.

You just reminded me of how Mary Maynard heard of the book Uncle Todd's Cat about Jesus

and the face a couple of times, but I never forget.

Harriet Beecher still wrote that book.

And they were living with a later pauper, the little woman who wrote the book that started

the Civil War.

And you can take it for what it is, whether that's true or not.

But the bottom line is that the end scene of that book, he is on the barge going down

the Mississippi River for slavery from which he'll never return.

He's been a slave, got away and then was recaptured and now is going down to what they know is

a hard slave master and he'll almost die.

And he's laying on the barge of the boat, crying, weeping.

And when you're reading the book, you think maybe he's crying or weeping because his situation

really sucks.

That's terrible.

He'll probably never come back.

He'll die.

His health is already bad.

He's already beaten severely, that kind of thing.

He's never going to see his family again.

He has a wife and kids that he's never going to see again.

And he's crying for this horrible situation that he's in when in reality he's crying for

the people around him that are wrecked up, slaves and slavers, wrecked up in the slave

trade and boat operators and everything like that who don't know Jesus.

And he's crying, wishing, because he knows when he dies, he'll go straight to heaven.

But he knows when they die, they'll go straight to hell.

And I think that profoundly affected the United States of America that realized that if you're

a human being, you have a chance of being saved.

And if you've been saved, your situation is eternally better than someone who has not

been saved.

And so we look at life circumstances, and we're going to talk a little bit about this

in a certain way.

We look at life circumstances and we misinterpret them.

The truth is, the wealthiest of us, the strongest, the smartest of us on earth without Christ

are headed for a horrible end, the life in which no one would want.

Whereas the poorest of, the blind, the wretched, he who sits in the ashes and scrapes himself

with pot shards, who has trusted in Christ, trusted in God, is headed for a end more glorious

than we can imagine.

Even though we like to imagine, we think about it a lot, but we have to use it in general

terms because not having been there, it's impossible for us to imagine.

So your circumstances are not based in reality.

The reality of your reality is wrapped up in what you have done with Jesus Christ.

That's the key.

Jesus would say, go and do the works of my Father.

And the Jews would say, what are the works of your Father?

And he said, believe on the one in whom he is sent.

And what has happened is people did, and people started being saved, and the church expanded,

grew massively, but somewhere along the lines, and I think it was about the Enlightened, we

started thinking, if you believe and think, something's true without letting it affect

you.

It's not like that.

We have to be effective at every level.

When he says believe on the one in whom you are sent, we let Jesus be in charge at every

level.

Now go tell that on the Mount.

If that's good news, it doesn't matter what your circumstances are, it matters to whom

you belong, for whom you are living.

Who you are living.

Anyway, praise God.

Go tell on the Mount.

Good stuff.

Anybody else?

All right.

We're going to pray together at this time, and we'll do a little tithing offering, a

little worship, and then go to the Word.

And I'm excited about what God has said to me this week, and I hope I'll be able to

convey it on.

Do your best, okay?

All right.

Brother Tim, would you pray for us as we transition to the Bible offerings and the

Word of the Word?

Our Lord and Father, we are gathered here today to honor you, to learn about you, and

praise you.

And we thank you for the much that you've blessed us with.

God bless you.

All right, we're going to ask you to stand with us again this morning if you would like

to.

Children, young at heart, if you'd like to learn some new emotions this morning, we've

got some for you.

Jesus, we just want to thank you.

Jesus, we just want to thank you.

Thank you for coming to us.

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