Replay | Old Testament Christmas with Chris Schlotterbeck

Welcome to Hub City Vineyard.

To get connected or to give online go to connect.hcv.church or give.hcv.church.

If at any point during this message you feel called to make a change in your life, text

change me to 970-00.

Thank you and enjoy the message.

Hey, good morning everyone.

How's everyone doing?

That good.

All right.

Excellent.

Happy Sunday.

We're so glad that you're here joining us at HCV.

If you're joining us online, thank you for welcoming us into your home.

It's great to connect with you and relate with you this beautiful Sunday.

I just want to start this morning just by recognizing how generous our community of

faith is like early last week.

We were having staff meeting on Tuesday and God just really overwhelmed me with your generosity.

I mean, think about it.

Over the last few weeks, we gave away almost 90 complete Thanksgiving meals to local families

in need partnering with our elementary schools and middle schools and even a few high schools.

We had 250 angels on our angel tree this year.

That's pretty near the most we've ever had and they're all gone.

I mean, you all picked them all up.

You went out and got gifts for these kids that wouldn't have gone without.

In the midst of a pandemic, right?

There's just a lot of negativity in the world, especially in the church world, just pastors

and leaders and just a lot of negativity about people not participating, not reconnecting.

I just want to say thanks.

Your generosity absolutely just blew me away as we kick off this holiday season.

Today, there's just many opportunities for you to gather and serve right here at HTV

today, right after this gathering to start with why.

What is that?

It's an introduction to HTV and how God desires to use you in our tri-state area.

We want to partner with you so that you can make a difference in this local community.

If you've never been to start with why, simply meet Mike Watson or Chris Rudasso right here

at the front of the stage directly after this gathering.

If you're online and you want to participate and start with why, you can simply go to zoom.htv.church.

There'll be a link there that you click and you can join us virtually for the start with

why class.

Today at 2.30, last week John Budnicki shared and really challenged our church.

I was just encouraged by the word that he gave.

He invited everyone to join him today at 2.30 if you would like.

He's going to meet at the City Park Museum parking lot and go Christmas caroling.

Of course he's going to be singing songs but looking for opportunities to pray for people

as well.

If you did pick up one of the angels and you brought it with you, you can leave it here,

give it to Ms. Lisa or you can drop it off at our Oak Ridge Drive location today between

10 and 3.

Tonight, Jess and I would like to invite you to join us.

Jess and I will be leading Pray First at our Oak Ridge Drive location.

Basically what is Pray First, we're going to gather at 6 to pray for the needs of our

community of faith, our local community, our nation and the world.

You're invited to come and join us as we just spend an hour praying and getting close to

God.

Now, as many of you know, we're preparing our hearts to celebrate Jesus' birth.

We're in the Christmas season and I'm excited to launch into this new series called Rediscover

Christmas.

Over the next three weeks, we're going to be looking at three different gifts that the

wise men gave Jesus around the time of His birth according to Matthew's Gospel and Matthew

Matthew 2 · chapter mention

chapter 2.

I found a stack of gifts on each side of the platform just for you to reference those gifts

that the Magi or the wise men brought.

Just to give you a little context of Matthew chapter 2, of course Jesus was born in Bethlehem

Matthew 2 · chapter mention

during the reign of King Herod and some wise men or Magi traveled a great distance to come

and worship Jesus.

Now how many wise men were there?

Does anybody know how many wise men there were?

Well, some people say three and of course if you have a nativity scene in your house

or you visit your mom's house and she has one up, right?

And you look at that nativity scene, you see three wise men.

Now is that true?

We have no idea.

Okay, we tended to think that there was three wise men because they brought three gifts.

So we relate those three gifts to the three wise men when in reality, chances are there

could have been dozens.

But tradition tells us that there are three.

But what we do know about these wise men, it doesn't matter if there's three or 23,

we know they are highly educated.

We know that they were incredibly wealthy and we also know they were desperate to meet

the one who might just be the savior of the world.

The Bible tells us in fact when they saw the star in Matthew chapter 2 verse 10, they were

Matthew 2:10

filled with joy.

And I want to stop right there.

Without word joy, it is my prayer that as we go through this series together that we

all discover a new sense of joy over these next three weeks.

Because I tell you, if you look at many people's lives throughout the nation, joy has been

stolen from them.

It's whether they can't go to church, they can't hang out with people, the pandemic,

the election, whatever it may be, it seems that a lot of joy has been lost.

It's my desire that as we refocus on Jesus that our joy would be uplifted within our

spirit.

So not only were the wise men filled with joy, but they entered a house, they saw the

child with his mother Mary and they bowed down and worshiped him.

Then they opened their treasure chest, they gave him gifts of gold, frankincense, and

myrrh.

Gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

Now for many of you, you know that it's been almost a year since our youngest son, Phoenix,

was born, surprise.

When Phoenix was born, let me tell you, we received no gifts of gold, frankincense, and

myrrh.

We didn't receive those.

For many people, they're like, well, what kind of a gift is that?

Well, when we had Phoenix, we got diapers and onesies and pacifiers, and we actually

got the ever important, all purpose baby snot sucker.

Now let me tell you about this little baby snot sucker.

With my older children, we had a snot sucker that had a blue ball on the end of it.

You put it in their nose and you squeezed.

Now in our technologically advanced world, now that we're smarter people 10 years later,

they've decided now that you can actually suck the snot from your child's nose.

Now why exactly you would like to do that, I have no idea, but that was a gift that we

were given, and I'm happy to say that I've never used that, but just has several times.

Okay?

Now these wise men, they offered three gifts, gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

These gifts were not only valuable, but they were very practical, and yet what a lot of

people don't know is they were deeply spiritual.

In fact, the Bible scholars agree that these gifts were useful for the family, but what

I'm going to tell you over the next three weeks is that it foreshadowed actually the

images of what Jesus would represent to you and me.

Gold, of course, we all know what gold is, it's very valuable in itself, but gold actually

represented the kingship of Jesus.

Next week we're going to discuss myrrh, and myrrh represented Jesus as the lamb of God,

and today we're going to talk about frankincense.

Before I get into the meaning of frankincense and how it relates to Jesus, according to

the essential oil advisors on the great wide web known as Google, frankincense is an oil

with all sorts of properties and all sorts of purposes.

It's actually like the Swiss army knife of essential oil, so if you're looking to get

started in essential oil, go get some frankincense.

Frankincense possesses antiseptic, astringent, carminative, diuretic, digestive, sedative,

uterine, and vulnerary therapeutic properties.

I have no idea what any of that means, no clue, but I do know that the internet told

me that those were very important properties in a healing aspect of frankincense, so now

you know what pastors do throughout the week in preparing for their sermons.

You're looking up what frankincense and essential oils do.

Now, frankincense we know was a very expensive and practical gift that was given to Jesus

because it helped the family to heal wounds and to treat wounds.

Now frankincense was the oil that the priests would use during the sacrifices.

They would be burning incense, like we are this morning, we're burning incense to reference

what was happening in the temple, and then that smoke would arise or rise up to heaven

representing the prayers of the people.

So the symbolism behind this offering of frankincense being burned and the prayers going up to the

people, that connected to the priestlyness of Jesus.

We're going to talk about Jesus, our high priest today.

Now some of you, if you weren't raised Roman Catholic or you weren't growing up in the

Episcopalian world like me, you may not necessarily relate to what a priest was, so I'm going

to break that down for you so that we can really understand who Jesus was and what he

did for us.

Now I want to be honest with you.

In this series, okay, I'm going to get off course a little bit.

I'm going to dive into some very deep theological and seminary teaching, and I just want to

make sure you guys can handle it.

Can you handle it?

Are you ready for it?

Okay, all right.

So don't say I didn't pre-warn you.

Okay, don't throw out to me all that was boring, I didn't get it, and all those things.

I pre-warned you, and I'm going to challenge you to open your minds and more importantly

your hearts to receive that all that God has for you through this series, which leads us

to our first thoughts this morning.

Priests represented the people before God.

Priests represented the people before God, there it is Matthew 2, 10 through 11, the

Magi showed up, they were filled with joy, they bowed down and worshiped, they opened

their treasure chests, they gave them gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

Today of course we're focusing on frankincense, Jesus, the high priest.

So the priest throughout scripture served one big primary role that was broken into

two functions.

The priest essentially would be the representative of the people before God.

I'm going to represent you before God if I was a priest, and the priest's primary role

was broken into the two functions.

First, the priest made sacrifices for the forgiveness of sins in the temple.

The priest would take an innocent animal, they would sacrifice it to represent the forgiveness

of the people's sins.

Secondly, the priest prayed prayers on behalf of the people of God representing the people

of God.

Hebrews 8, 3 tells us this, since every high priest is required to offer gifts and sacrifices,

they offered gifts meaning prayers, and then they made the sacrifices.

So in our next two thoughts I want to talk about those two functions as we see Jesus

as our high priest which leads us to our next thought.

See friends, God is holy.

God is holy.

Since the very moment in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve sinned against God there

were two opposing forces that collided, the holiness of God and the sinfulness of mankind.

And if we don't understand the holiness of God, guess what?

We're always going to just casually approach sin.

We're going to casually approach it like it's no big deal and it's not going to harm us.

Until we understand what it truly means that God is holy, we'll never realize the cost

and the tragedy of what sin does to us.

God is holy.

Look at 1 Samuel 2, 2.

No one is holy like the Lord.

There is no one besides you.

There is no rock like our God.

Isaiah 6 verse 3, they were calling out to each other, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of

Isaiah 6:3

heaven's armies.

The whole earth is filled with his glory.

So what does it mean that God is holy?

Well the word holy comes from the Greek word agios which means separate.

It means other.

What is God?

God is transcendently separate.

Our God is perfect in every single way.

He is flawless, he is pure, he has no fault, no wrong, no stain in him and our God is transcendent

the other.

And remember that means he's separate.

He's perfect.

So we need to understand that the holiness isn't just one attribute of God.

Holiness is the perfection of all of his attributes.

His power is holy.

God's grace is holy.

God's mercy is holy.

God's glory is holy.

It's his holiness, his otherness if you will, his separateness, his purity that makes him

worthy of our praise.

Now our God is holy and our challenge is that we're not.

See the struggle in many of our lives is we're not perfect, we're not holy and thus the challenge

for us to live up to his standards.

Look at 1 Peter 1, 15 to 16, but now you must be holy in everything you do just as God who

chose you is holy for the scriptures say you must be holy because I am holy which leads

to our next thought.

See humanity is sinful.

Romans 5, 12, when Adam sinned, sin entered the world.

Adam sin brought death so death spread to everyone for everyone sinned.

Now admittedly in our culture today a lot of people don't want to use that word sin.

They might say well I made a mistake, I'm sorry, but it's not sin.

Who's to tell me if I'm sinned?

If it feels good do it.

What's good to me is true to me is what I believe it may not be what you believe.

Who needs sin?

One psychiatrist said that sin is a very outdated term to trick children to being good.

Sad but true.

In other words who needs sin when you got Elf on the Shelf?

Elf on the Shelf, he travels around each morning doing different things.

He's going to report kids naughty and nice back to Santa.

Who needs sin?

Let's just keep the children in check.

See here's the challenge.

We have to understand the reality of sin because there's the holiness of God and the sinfulness

of man.

None of us are holy.

None of us are perfect.

Not a single one of you nor me.

Not the nice neighbor who helps you do everything or the kind lady at work that seems to be

perfect.

Everyone is sinned.

Look at Romans 3, 23.

For everyone is sinned.

We all fall short of God's glorious standard.

See this is why God hates sin because it's everything he's not.

It's not that he hates us.

He hates the sin because it's the opposite of his holiness.

And see it's the opposite of his holiness which means it disrupts our intimacy, our

connection, our fellowship with him.

Sin separates us from God and unfortunately affects our life negatively.

Friends, we have to realize that God hates sin.

Now in the Old Testament, the high priest one time a year would make a sacrifice as

a temporary payment for the sins of the people.

It was known as the Day of Atonement or Yom Kippur and the priest would sacrifice an innocent

animal, go into the tabernacle behind the veil, into the place that is the holy of holies.

The priest would then light the frankincense to lift the prayers of the people to God,

to heaven and as the smoke rose, he literally would sprinkle the blood of the innocent animal

all over the mercy seat and this would symbolize the death of an innocent one in place of the

guilty ones as payment for our sins.

Then have you ever heard of the term scapegoat before?

See there was two parts of the priest process.

That term came from the priest.

He would take another goat, an innocent animal, he would lay hands on the goat, confess the

sins of the people, symbolically transforming those sins onto the goat and then release

the goat into the wilderness or throw it off a cliff.

Therefore the first animal died as a sacrifice paying for the price of the sins.

The scapegoat was run out of the community symbolizing that the sins have been separated

from the people of God.

Can I just pause there a minute?

Let's all just take a deep breath.

That's just weird.

Would you all agree with that?

That's just weird.

As I was studying this and really understanding what they were doing, they were taking an

innocent animal, slit its throat, put the blood in a bucket, sprinkle the blood over

the mercy seat, they would lay hands on a goat, release it into the wilderness or make

it run off of a cliff.

I mean that's just weird.

Just straight up weird.

It's very, very extreme and to me it seems unfair.

But here's what you have to understand.

Because God is just, completely just, perfect, He must punish sin.

But God isn't only just, He's what?

He's merciful.

And because of His mercy, right, the sacrifice took care of the justness, the mercy was the

scapegoat.

The price is paid with the sacrifice so that the forgiveness of sins can be released, the

mercy can be released on the scapegoat.

So God's holiness and His justice is completely satisfied.

Now that, those actions were a temporary covering under the old covenant.

But we, you and I, we're not a people of the old covenant, we're under the new covenant.

And when I tell you about a new and a better sacrifice, which leads us to our next thought,

you see, Jesus paid the price for sin.

Hebrews chapter 10, verse 10 tells us a little bit about this great high priest.

Hebrews 10:10

His name was Jesus.

Look at Hebrews 10, 10 through 12.

For God's will was for us to be made holy by the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ

once for all time.

Under the old covenant, the priest stands and ministers before the altar day after day,

offering the same sacrifices again and again, which can never take away the sins.

But our high priest offered himself to God as a single sacrifice for sins, good for all

time.

Then he sat down in the place of honor at God's right hand.

You know, a prime example of that is I made you guys a shirt this morning.

Okay.

I took one of my favorite tie dyes and I covered it in coffee grounds and ketchup, salsa, guacamole,

refried beans and hot chocolate.

Okay.

And let me be honest with you.

It's one of my tie dyes that I want to give to anybody to wear.

Now would you guys want to wear a shirt that looks like this?

I mean, seriously, and not only does it look bad, it smells.

Okay.

It stinks.

It's dirty.

Right.

And then you know what I did?

I took straight bleach and I poured it all over this shirt and it didn't help at any.

Right.

It wasn't anything that I could do to wash this shirt clean because it was completely

covered in what?

In filth.

And see, what we have to recognize with Jesus being our high priest is this.

We're kind of like this shirt.

Right.

We're not perfect.

We're going to make mistakes.

We got stains, wrinkles.

Right.

We spill coffee on ourselves.

We say the wrong things, do the wrong things, make bad choices.

And see, this shirt, we can try to clean it up ourselves, but it's never going to get

clean.

You can't clean it up yourself.

It doesn't matter how much you scrub it.

I mean, straight bleached it and get it clean.

And see, what Jesus does for us though is this.

The high priest sacrificed his life so that he could take his righteousness, his gift,

if you will, and put it over your dirtiness.

So that our brokenness, our sins are covered by his righteousness.

And it's not anything we do, it's all him.

So that when God looks at us, when we're in a relationship with Jesus, you know what God

sees in us?

He sees the righteousness of God because Jesus has covered our what?

Sin.

So, so, so we see in the sacrifice, right?

Jesus died as our Savior, but ultimately though, his rising to be with the Father allows his

Spirit to cover us with his righteousness.

And it's important for us to understand, he's not just this distant Savior off in heaven

somewhere that just feels sorry for us.

Oh, it sucks to be you.

Jesus, our fifth thought, understands and cares for all humanity.

Look at Hebrews 4, 14 to 15.

So then, since we have a high priest who has entered heaven, Jesus, the Son of God, let

us hold firmly to what we believe.

This high priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all the same things and testings

we do, yet he did not sin.

So this high priest of ours, Jesus, the high priest, he understands our weaknesses, he

faced the same testings we do, yet he did not what?

He did not sin.

And see, we need to understand and embrace this truth because whatever you're going through

this morning, it doesn't matter what you walked in here with, it doesn't matter what you're

dealing with at home, online, Jesus understands.

He relates through our trials, he sympathizes with our pains.

Whatever you're going through at this very moment, guess what?

Jesus understands it because he went through it.

I mean, think about this, if you feel stressed right now, it could be your work, it could

be your children, it could be Christmas is coming, if you feel stressed right now, Jesus

in the Garden of Gethsemane had his friends abandon him.

He knew what was coming, he knew he was facing the cross, he fell to the ground and his words

were, my soul is overwhelmed in agony to the point of death.

Friends that's stress, Jesus experienced it.

If you deal with crazy people in your family, Jesus dealt with crazy people in your family.

Did you know that that's a spiritual principle?

Every family has a little crazy in it, everyone does.

How many of you, raise your hands, how many of you have a little crazy in your family?

Raise your hands, raise your hands if you have a little crazy in your family.

Now look around, find the person or people that don't have their hands up, nod at them

and say you're the crazy.

That's right, you're the crazy.

Every family has some crazy, right?

And it causes you stress and you get overwhelmed.

Think about this, when Jesus said he was the Messiah, his family said he was crazy, he

was a lunatic.

He said you're a lunatic.

Think about how Jesus understands what you're going through.

Jesus was conceived out of wedlock to a teenage mom, scandalous in his time.

He was raised in a small town where everybody whispered about him and called him a bastard.

Jesus lived in poverty, he was criticized, he was ridiculed, he was bullied, he was tempted

by the devil again and again and again.

When he was at his weakest and most vulnerable, remember he didn't eat for 40 days but he

did not sin.

Jesus experienced the death of a close friend, he grieved the loss of family members, he

was accused of things he did not do.

Worst of all, he felt abandoned by God on the cross.

Now he wasn't, but he felt that way because Jesus, the high priest, became the sin for

you and me.

And just like the scapegoat, what did God have to do while Jesus was on the cross?

He had to look away.

And while Jesus was hanging on the cross, he said these words, my God, my God, why have

you forsaken me?

So if you've ever felt like you couldn't reach the presence of God, Jesus understands it.

If you've never felt the presence of God while Jesus was on that cross, he understands it.

Whatever you feel this morning, he felt.

Whatever you hurt, he hurt.

The high priest sympathizes with you and me and he is now sitting in heaven praying prayers

on our behalf.

Friends, it's an invitation to experience something new in our relationship with Jesus.

John 1, 1 says, in the beginning was the Word and the Word is with God and the Word became

flesh.

Imagine if you can the details of what God did for you.

He was born in the form of a child that we're going to celebrate who loves you and cares

about you.

God in His divine providence, what did he do?

He sent wise men to bring gifts, prophetically declaring the nature of Jesus to come.

Frankincense, he is our priest who would be sacrificed for the forgiveness of sins and

literally intercede on our behalf.

See, in Hebrews chapter 4 verse 16, it makes a statement about how we're to approach Jesus

Hebrews 4:16

each and every day.

Friends, it's so important that we discuss this verse and embrace its truth because it

will supernaturally change your life.

Now this morning, some of you are like, it's a little different today Chris, what is this

all about?

Well this morning I invited Daniel to come and to play some worship behind me and it

was for this very reason.

We no longer practice the prayers of incense and burning the incense and offering the prayers

up to heaven.

We practice that, right, because we no longer have to.

We have the Holy Spirit living inside of us.

But see, our worship took the place of that incense.

See, when we worship and we sing out to God, it's not about just coming here and being

entertained and clapping our hands and singing songs.

I want to challenge you, our worship is our prayers to God.

And it's removing that old covenant, embracing it with the new so that God's Spirit can

dwell up within us that as we worship, He hears our needs and our prayers and our desires.

So in essence, Daniel playing is our frankincense this morning.

Which leads us to how we need to approach Jesus.

Number one, we need to approach Jesus boldly.

Look at Hebrews 4.16, let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God.

There we will receive His mercy.

We will find grace to help us when we need it most.

You can come to Jesus boldly.

And why?

You say, well, Chris, why would I come to Jesus boldly?

Because He cares about you.

He understands you.

And He desires that we go before His gracious throne and receive His mercy.

Why?

You're like, Chris, why would I do that?

Because God desires to reign His grace and His mercy upon us through Jesus' sacrifice.

When we need it most, that's when we go to Him.

And it's my invitation to you today to come.

You can come boldly.

Now, so many people, when they think about coming before God, they want to kind of hunker

down.

They picture God with a big paddle that's going to punish them and yell at them and

scream at them.

That's not true.

So what God desires, He doesn't want us to be afraid to come to Him.

He desires that we embrace Him.

Hey, you know something else?

When you come boldly before God, you don't have to use King James language.

You can just be yourself.

Just speak as you talk.

Come as you are when you speak to God.

I mean, think about it.

When my children come to me, I'm their earthly father.

I have six children.

When my children come to me, guess what?

I respond.

Now, Friday was a little different.

All of my children are home now from school, and I was getting ready for a wedding.

I was a little late, so I was preparing the ceremony.

I was typing it up, working at the table, and Trinity comes running in, my oldest daughter.

And Trinity is now bigger than me.

So when she comes running in, she kind of wraps her arms around me, and a hug to her

now is a bear hug, and you barely can breathe.

And I was ignoring her, trying to keep working, but I couldn't see my scream.

And I was like, Trinity!

She goes, I'm not letting go until you hug me back.

So, of course, as a dad, what did I do?

I responded.

And see, that's how God is with us.

Remember, He stands at the door and knocks, right?

Boldly realize that Jesus placed His righteousness, remember this?

Remember this shirt that you carry around?

He placed it on you.

Jesus placed His righteousness on you.

Stop living in the past.

Which leads us to our next approach to Jesus.

We need to approach Jesus honestly.

Let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God.

See, God is gracious.

There we will receive His mercy.

Friends just talk to Jesus.

He cares about you.

Look at 1 Peter 5, 7.

Give all your worries.

Now, does it say give your desperation worries?

It says all your worries.

All your cares to God because He cares about you.

Think of Philippians 4, don't worry about anything.

Instead, pray about everything.

Tell God what you need and thank Him for all He's done.

Then you experience God's peace.

Which exceeds anything we can understand.

His peace will guard our hearts and minds as you live in Jesus.

For example, those of you who are gathered here and you have a loved one that's far from

God struggling in life.

You need to say their name to God.

Speak it to Jesus.

Tell Jesus who it is and He intercedes on your behalf.

Jesus would be praying for that person right now.

Some of you are struggling financially and Christmas is coming and you've got the weight

of the world on you.

You're not sure how you're going to pay all your bills.

You're afraid you're hurting.

But the Bible tells us that Jesus is our provider.

He meets all of our needs according to God's glorious riches.

Some of you are hurting emotionally.

Perhaps you're carrying the cares of a broken relationship or what has been and happened

in the past and it hurts.

You're struggling physically or someone that you love got a bad medical record.

Guess what?

Jesus is our healer.

The Bible tells us He bore our stripes.

He hurts with you.

He understands.

Some of you are overwhelmed and feel like you're completely broken and Jesus says I

want to be your strength.

Friends, you've got to come to Jesus.

Approach Jesus honestly.

Boldly, honestly.

Number three, you've got to approach Jesus openly.

Notice it says let us come boldly to our gracious God that we receive His mercy and we will

find grace.

We need to receive God's grace this morning which means we need to open up our heart and

be vulnerable before Him.

Look at Jeremiah 17.

We have to remember this.

The human heart is the most deceitful of all things.

Desperately wicked.

Who really knows how bad it is?

But I the Lord search all hearts, examine secret motives.

I give all people their due rewards according to what their actions deserve.

Luke 8 17.

For all that is secret will eventually be brought into the open and everything that

is concealed will be brought to the light and made known to all.

Allow God to search your heart this morning.

If there's negativity, if there's sin, if there's unforgiveness, if there's bitterness,

there's anger, what do you do?

You give it to Him.

Present it to Him.

Allow the Spirit to remove it from your heart so you can move forward which moves to the

final way that we approach Jesus.

Remember, we come boldly.

We come honestly.

We come openly.

And finally, you've got to be regular.

Regularly approach Jesus.

Look at Hebrews 4 16.

Let us come boldly to the throne of gracious God.

There we will receive His mercy.

We will find grace.

He will help us when we need it most.

Friends, there should not be a situation that we go through alone.

If this past week you said you had a bad day or today you look at me and you say, Chris,

I just had a bad week.

You know what that means?

That means that we're choosing not to involve Jesus in our lives.

Did everyone hear that?

We're choosing not to involve Jesus in our lives because we're having a bad day over

anxiety and stress.

We're overwhelmed with financial.

Then we're not allowing God to speak to our hearts when faced with those situations.

Look at Lamentations 3 22 to 23.

The faithful love of the Lord never ends.

His mercies never cease.

Great is His faithfulness.

His mercies begin afresh.

How often?

Every morning.

Every morning, friends.

Psalm 23 6.

Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life and I will

live in the house of the Lord forever.

Now I'm excited because today, you know what I want to give you?

I want to give you a gift.

I want to give you a gift this morning.

I'm not going to let you leave here with a little stick of frankincense.

I want to give you a gift to spend a few moments in God's presence.

When's the last time you've really enjoyed God's presence?

Because you know what quite often happens in our busy lives?

We allow our social media posts, our news feeds, our sports teams, our TikTok videos.

We allow that to rob God's presence from our lives.

We don't make priorities where they need to be set.

And this morning I'm going to invite all of us to come boldly before God's throne and

just invite His presence into our lives.

And I want you to hear me out.

I don't care who you are, where you came from, how long you've been in church, how long you

haven't been in church.

I want you to come before God your own way.

You use your own language, your own words, your own style.

I just want to invite you to go before God and talk to Him.

Now I invited Lauren to join Daniel this morning in singing the song, So Will I.

So as we go before God this morning, the words will be on the screen.

Some of you will feel led to sing.

Sing.

Some of you will be led to weep.

Weep.

Some of you will be led to laugh.

Laugh.

Some of you will be led to clap.

Stand up and clap.

It's okay.

Be yourself.

Some of you will be challenged to stand and lift your hands up and pray for a family member,

a friend that is in need of change.

Some of you need to go before God and allow your heart to be changed and set free.

Whatever it is that God is leading you to, respond.

Because this is your gift that I'm giving to you as we kick off this Christmas season.

Now let's all pray the words, Come Holy Spirit together, and then we'll allow Lauren to sing.

Can we do that?

All right.

Just, I want to invite you if you can, if you're comfortable, just put your hands like

this.

No big deal, it's just a posture of openness, saying we're allowing God to come in.

Now let's say it together.

Come Holy Spirit.

There's no impossible.

I believe that you are working now.

So pour it out.

Oh, pour it out.