Joy Unspeakable - March 1, 2026

It is my privilege to invite you to today's sermon podcast.

I have made the Apostle Paul's prayer request my own.

When he states in Ephesians 6.19, Pray also for me, that whenever I open my

mouth, the words may be given to me, so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel.

May today's sermon come alive to you and aid you in your understanding of God's plan for your life.

It is good to call Jesus Lord. I hope that you can agree with that statement.

Powerful it is when we give Jesus the steering wheel to our life and we let

him lead, guide, and direct us.

When my son Noah, I don't know if Noah's in here, he'll probably hear it echoing

the hallways, or he just has a sixth sense when I start talking about him,

he shows up, so he could pop in any door at any minute, so we'll just be aware of it.

Yeah, I got to be careful. Anytime I mention him in a sermon,

he expects me to buy him lunch or a soda or something.

It's kind of the pastor kid's tacks I've learned over the years.

When Noah was little, we, of course, were living in Central California.

We went to the big metropolis of Fresno, California, and there was a restaurant

there we wanted to try called the Macaroni Grill.

I don't know if that's in existence anymore, but we went to the Macaroni Grill,

and it's one of the first times we ever experienced this one thing that Noah did when he was a kid.

When Noah would get really, really super excited.

He would start flapping his arms and he would start standing on his tiptoes

like he was going to start flying away.

You know, little did we know that that was a sign that he has autism and he does.

He has high functioning Asperger's syndrome autism, but we didn't know it then.

And, but when he got really excited about something, that's what he would do.

And so we know, we knew he's going to love macaroni grill.

I mean, they had this, this paper down where you could color on the table with

crayons and everything and.

It was just a good time, good food, too. But when I think about that little

tick that Noah exhibited at that time,

I thought about the song that was sung earlier, and that just subsequently happens

to be the title of my sermon this morning, Joy Unspeakable.

Just so much joy that wells up with inside you. You don't know what to do with it.

You can't find the words to say it, but yet it's there. It's present.

It's evident on your face.

It's evident in your walk. It's evident in everything about you,

even if you can't articulate that, even if you can't find the right words to

say, here's what I'm feeling. It's just this joy that's in there.

And so as I was thinking about this last church year, and as I read the reports

that came in, and as we talked about the different things that God has done over this past year,

that's the feeling that I had within myself, was just a joy unspeakable.

And while it may not be articulated very eloquently today, I do hope that we

can find some words just to say thank you.

And if we can't, maybe a hand clap or an amen or a hallelujah as we just consider

this passage of Scripture and interspersed with just some things that God has

done over this past year.

And so I hope you'll have some grace toward me. We are taking just a short break

from the better series in Hebrews.

And so we are going to be in 1 Peter 1 this morning. And so if you're willing

and able, would you stand as we read 1 Peter 1, verses 3 through 9?

1 Peter 1:3–9

I'll just invite you to hear the word of the Lord this morning.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

In his great mercy, he has given us new birth into a living hope through the

resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance that can

never perish, spoil, or fade.

This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who, through faith,

are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready

to be revealed in the last time.

In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had

to suffer grief on all kinds of trials.

These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith,

of greater worth than gold, which perishes, even though refined by the fire,

may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

Though you have not seen him, you love him, And even though you do not see him

now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy.

For you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

Father, thank you for your word. Lord, may this feed us today and throughout

the week as well. Lord, we thank you.

Thank you in so many different ways. Lord, hear the cries of our heart this

morning that cry out to you with great gratitude and joy. And it's in Jesus' name that we pray, amen.

I just want to share five observations from this passage this morning,

and just to intersperse it, like I said, with some good things that have happened over this past year.

And I don't know if you remember, but last year, January, I set out with the

theme, you know, Come Alive in 25. It may be cheesy, but it's what my prayer

and my hope was for our church.

And so throughout the sermon today, just want to share some ways in which I

think we've come alive, and that we haven't died to these things,

but we're going to continue in them.

The first thing I want you to notice in 1 Peter 1, verse 3, is that God has given us a living hope.

1 Peter 1:3

I know that's printed in your bulletin, Living Hope in a Broken World,

and that's kind of a subtitle here.

But the kind of unspeakable joy we have is because we do have this living hope that comes from God,

this living hope that it's not just a good wish of something that might happen,

but it's an actual reality, something that continues to persist as we move on

through life, through the ups and downs of life.

We still have a hope that we can count on.

Again, verse 3, praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

It sets out the tone, and I hope this sets the tone for the sermon today as well.

It's a sermon of praise, of saying, thank you, God, for what you're doing.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In His great mercy.

He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

That's what we celebrate every time we meet together. We celebrate this new

birth that we have in Jesus.

A chance for a second, a second chance at life, a true life,

the way that God has intended for us to live.

This new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus. us.

In just a few weeks, short weeks, really, about a month or so,

we're going to be gathering together on the day that's called Easter to celebrate

the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the grave.

We're going to do that in many different ways, and I hope you start right now

to invite people to be at that service together.

We're going to do some things we've never done before, at least since I've been

here. I know it's only been two years, but hey, today's the anniversary, by the way.

Now that I said that, praise the Lord.

You might change your mind this next year, but at least we'll celebrate two

years today. Hallelujah.

In the last two years, we've celebrated the resurrection, but new things that

we're going to do this year to enhance that and to reach out to people.

So I just want you to invite as many as you can to that.

But when we think about this passage of Scripture, the new birth that we have

into a living hope, we can think about how we came alive last year in 2025,

witnessing the Lord breathe fresh life and new life into our worship,

into our discipleship, and really into the whole mission that we have to make

Christ-like disciples in the nations.

Of course, we start right here, but it goes out through the whole world.

God has done some incredible things. We've seen many people get baptized.

We had 22 baptisms that we celebrated last year.

Praise the Lord. You know, when

I baptize, you saw it last week right down here, when I baptize people,

we say that they're buried with Christ and they're raised to walk in newness

of life, raised with Christ by the power of the resurrection,

to live in that newness of life.

Boy, we can thank God for that and say, thank you, Jesus, and to continue on

the track that he's put us on.

And for those of you that made that commitment this past year to be baptized,

I just thank God for you and that choice you made in your walk with Christ,

to continue to follow him in that way.

I know when that happens, sometimes there's some trials and struggles that come along.

But at the same time, God sees us through those trials and those struggles.

And so we've seen new birth in action through the ministries of our church.

I'm happy to report that I know of at least 10 that accepted Christ as their

Savior for the first time this past year.

10 new people that came to Jesus. And we can say, thank the Lord.

Yeah. I thank the Lord for our youth ministry. And Pastor Jevin,

I thank the Lord for our children's ministry with Pastor Quincy.

I'm thankful for everyone who's got a small group, a Sunday school class,

a group on Wednesday nights when you faithfully meet together and you help to

share the Word of God that way. And so we just give praise to God.

You know, we've had, every time that we meet, a resurrection focus.

We praise the Lord that last Resurrection Sunday, we had close to 450 people

that were there that had come on that special, special day to worship God.

And they saw what we're all about on that day.

Some of you maybe have come for the first time then, but you continue to come.

On Easter Sunday, we represent and we focus on the centrality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

But it's not just that day, as I said. We always celebrate the resurrection

of Jesus and the life that he continues to bring to us.

And so I hope that you've experienced some kind of new life in your life this past year.

I was happy last week when Matt and Gloria announced their special arrival that is on the way.

You know, and I found out this week, I won't say, I don't know if I have permission,

but the new baby has a gender, of course, male or female, and it's 50-50 chance.

I won't tell you which one I would bet on because I already know,

and I wouldn't bet anyway, but there's new life, literally a new life that's happening.

And I remember Melanie and I praying for them right here for that specific issue.

And so God is answering prayers.

I know Pastor Bob and Johanna, they were praying for people here.

Pastor Jevin and Nina, you guys were praying for people here,

and we had Pastor Quincy praying for others.

And as a result of that prayer service that we had, we've seen God do some amazing, incredible things.

They don't always get shouted from the pulpit up here, but the Lord has moving

and has moved to bring new life.

He's given us a living hope.

And I pray that you experience that living hope every single day that you waken,

that you know that God's got a plan for you, that he's got something great.

Verses four and five that we read just a few minutes ago, it says something great.

I don't know if you've ever seen that bumper sticker on the back of someone's

car, or if maybe you have this bumper sticker on the back of your car that says,

I'm having a blast going through life, spending my kid's inheritance.

I always chuckle at that because I know that I don't get an inheritance from my parents.

It's done been spent a long time ago, and I'm probably spending my inheritance

on them, whatever that might be.

Sorry, Emma, nothing coming your way. It kind of runs in the family.

That's why I guess I love this verse because it says that our inheritance is secure in Christ.

Don't have to worry about losing it in the stock market. Don't have to worry

about losing it in the crypto markets. We don't have to lose it because it's secure in Jesus.

And that's the key phrase. The scripture says that we have this living hope.

Jesus Christ rose from the dead. And in verse 4, and into an inheritance that

can never perish, spoil, or fade. Isn't that great?

What we have in Jesus will never spoil, will never fade, will never perish. But here's the key.

This inheritance is kept in heaven for you.

So guess where you gotta make it to get it.

You've got to make it to heaven, brothers and sisters. You've got to make it there.

It's kept for you. It's waiting for you there. There's treasure. Amen.

That's right. A great treasure. And you're storing it up every day that you

live, every day that you're going through, living the life that Christ wants you to live.

Cha-ching, cha-ching. If you could hear that sound every time you make that

choice to follow Jesus, even when it's hard, you know there's that treasure being stored up for you.

We can thank God that this inheritance never spoils, fades, never goes away,

but it's kept there for you.

I think about some of the sermon series that I preached this last year.

One of them was The Good Life. We explored Philippians and 2 Timothy and Matthew,

and we really understood that our inheritance is found only in Christ alone.

Whatever the world offers you is not enough. Whatever the world says,

hey, this is better. It's not better.

As a matter of fact, it looks good, but in the end, you find out it wasn't even

worth the struggles that you went through.

But I'm here to tell you that the life that Christ wants you to live,

that the life that Christ died for you to truly live, it's worth it.

Even through the struggles, even through the trials, when you go all the way to make it to heaven.

When I was a youth pastor, we were in Central California. We took a group of

kids down to Ontario, California, now not Ontario, Oregon, but we went there

to a big youth conference that they had.

And in this youth conference, it was put on by Focus on the Family,

and we were all given these wristbands.

And on these wristbands, there was just two words. The words were, be there.

Be there. And so we all got these. We're like, what's this all about?

What are we going to do with these wristbands?

And as it went on, it tells the story of James Dobson telling his kids that

when he goes to be with Jesus, he wants to make sure his kids will be there.

He said, do all you can. He poured out his heart to his kids,

to his grandkids. Do all that you can to be there.

And Christian, these verses should motivate us to be there.

To be there, not just to see the great inheritance that has been provided for

us, but to be there with our friends, with our family, with those that we've

attended church with our whole lives, with those that we've shared Jesus with.

Just be there. Let's get there together. Our inheritance is secure in Christ.

I received this last year as a result of one of my sermons.

I don't know if you've ever seen this before, but these are three pigs flying.

You've got to see this. Thanks to Doug and Cindy Laws, they dropped this by

my office when I concluded that sermon series.

And they found this in Marsing somewhere, I think M&W.

Because I always joked with them, next time if I ever do that sermon series again.

I'm going to get this remote-controlled inflatable pig with wings and have someone

fly it through the whole audience or congregation.

But we talked about when pigs fly, when God does the impossible. You remember that?

And when God does the impossible, we're left in awe of what happens.

And when we think about this secure inheritance that is held in God's power

for us, boy, that just seems impossible, especially when we read it's shielded by God's power.

When pigs fly, we talked about being shielded with the miraculous provision

that God makes for us, even when we don't see Him working.

And I want you just to have encouragement that God's going to take care of you.

No matter what you're going through, where you're at in your stage or age of

life, that God's there with you.

He hasn't abandoned you, and He's walking with you through that.

We are shielded by that power of God. Sometimes it might not feel like it.

Why is that? Well, because sometimes we've got to go through stuff.

Sometimes our faith needs to be tested and challenged. And so we go through

things that are difficult, that are hard.

Which brings me to my third point. We have trials, but they are temporary and transforming.

Again, looking back at the scripture passage in verse 6, In all this you greatly rejoice.

We rejoice that we've got a secure inheritance in Christ, in heaven,

waiting for us to get there.

We rejoice in that. But it says, though now for a little while you may have

had to suffer grief or trials, or in all kinds of trials, excuse me.

These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith,

and it says here, your faith is of greater worth than gold,

that gold perishes even though refined by the fire, that your faith may result

in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed, when Christ returns,

that your faith is shown to be even more valuable than gold. Praise God for that.

You know, we have a ministry in our church called Open Heart Ministry.

Open Heart Ministry is incredible. The ladies that are part of that do amazing,

amazing work that a lot of you see, but you don't ever connect the dots.

If you've ever received a card from our church, it's because of Open Heart Ministry.

It's because of the love that they have for you, the love that our church has for you.

They're there to support our congregation.

When we have funerals, which we had several this past year, they're the ones

that are there to help plan the meal and make sure everything is arranged.

And so I just want to say thanks be to God. And if we could just praise the

Lord with our hands for the open heart ministry.

When you get a chance to look at the report, it's toward the back of the report.

You'll see all the statistics on there for last year. It's just astounding, amazing.

What these ladies, these are volunteers, dear, precious volunteers of our congregation,

that the Lord has placed us on their hearts to do this.

And so I just want to say, thanks be to God for them, because we have trials.

But in those trials, we know we're not alone. God's with us.

We know that up here, but sometimes it doesn't feel that way.

But when someone else comes alongside to walk the path with you,

a brother or a sister, or you know that someone is praying for you,

then we give thanks, honor, and glory to God because we know we're not alone.

It's kind of like we talked about before, a Jesus with flesh on, right?

Sometimes that's the role that we play, the hug that you give,

the handshake, you know, the conversation you have with someone else.

By the way, I just want to thank this congregation again for last week.

Last week, we filled out 300 prayer cards for people going to NYC.

When I dropped those cards off, I found out that our district was given 1,000

of those, so we got like a third of those to fill out.

I thought, well, why are they giving us a big share to do, you know?

And then I got to thinking, well, we are known on our district by what's above

me on the wall back here, that we're a congregation that believes in prayer,

that prayer saturates everything we do. And so it was kind of a no-brainer.

Well, duh, of course they're going to give us a lot. And I thank those of you

in our congregation who took a big portion of those home with you to do when

we had some extras left over. But, you know, the kids that are going to NYC

are going to have some trials.

God's going to be calling some into ministry there. God is going to be introducing

them to their future spouses at NYC. It's happened before, I'm told.

So there's going to be these trials, but these transformative trials are only

temporary. God will use them for his glory.

Just thank the Lord, again, for the transitions that we made in this past year.

Some of the trials we went through.

When Pastor Ethan left and we wondered what we were going to do,

I'm so grateful that Marco stepped up and Liz Gray and several others,

Amber Dewey, and they took on the youth ministry and getting that going.

And we went through the process of finding another youth pastor and the Lord

led Pastor Jevin to us or us to him, however that worked.

And so we're here together. And so I just thank the Lord for you and praise

God. Yeah. And Thank you.

And going through all those trials, God is blessing. He's blessing that.

There's still trials that we're going to face ahead this next year.

There's going to be other transitions that take place in ministry.

There'll be some transitions, as you voted for today, in our different ministries and boards and such.

But, you know, God is still going to be with us in the midst of transitions.

I'll tell you that we've got a great facility that you have,

well, you sacrificed to get this building that we're in.

The building's getting older, you know?

And it may not seem like 20, 23, 25 years is very old, but you know what the

lifespan of a roof is? I think it's like 30.

Maybe we're blessed and this one will go longer, and that's what we're praying for. Please, Lord.

Because that is a trial that we'll have to face. I don't have the figure,

and I'd be scared to say it in front of everybody, but the amount of money that

we've spent this last year,

really the last two years on HVAC units that have reached the end of their lifespan,

they're brand new when the church was built, but we suffered some of that.

Was anyone here when we had the big fan at the back of the sanctuary.

Yeah. Praise God we had that fan, right? But that's evidence that,

yeah, our building's kind of getting older, kind of like when we get older.

Some things don't work quite anymore and can't replace everything.

Some things you can, but we're going to have those trials ahead.

You know, we're going to have trials if the Lord continues to bless us and we continue to grow.

We're going to have to make some hard choices as this place is filled up.

And Lord, what comes next? How do we proceed here?

And so there are going to be trials, but yet we're going to continue to face

them with the Lord, following the lead of the Holy Spirit as we traverse those.

And so I'm not trying to sell you something here where there's not ever going to be any trouble.

Hey, Jesus said, in this world, you will have trouble.

And as we follow Christ, we know we're going to have trouble at times.

But I don't want us to be discouraged because my fourth point here,

and that is we love and trust Jesus even though we haven't seen him.

It's a reminder that the Christian life is based on faith, your faith in Christ.

Even though you can't see him, even though he's not here sitting on the front

rows, we know that he's present with us.

And we know that as we think about this, the scripture passage,

though you have not seen him, you love him. You believe in him.

You are filled with a joy unspeakable.

As the NIV said, inexpressible and glorious joy. That's okay too,

I guess. But we've got joy in the mission.

Do you know what our mission is as Mountain View Church of the Nazarene?

Our mission is to know Christ. Our mission is to share his love and not just

stop there, but make him known to others.

If you want to make it real simple in three words, memorize these words.

It's what our church is all about.

We exist to know, to love, and to share.

Those three words, that's what we're all about. To know God,

to know others, to love God, to love others, to share with God and to share with others.

That's what we're all about. And we have joy in that mission.

You know, we have a joy, we have that joy in the mission. We were able to invite

several missionaries this past year.

And what I love when Pastor Bob would bring missionaries in,

would connect us with them, is that we got to put stories, stories.

We got to put names and faces to all the things that we heard,

all the things that we are praying for.

We got to tangibly see what God was doing in that.

That brings us joy to see how God moves in such a way.

Seeing those missionaries that came through, we had Jubilee this last year, right?

And boy, he's just a bundle of joy. Praise God.

We had the parrots that came through, and not the birds, but the people, okay?

The parrot family that came through. They blessed us, but not just us.

They went and they spent some time at our summer camps at Trinity Pines and blessed them as well.

And so there's much joy to be shared. This joy, all the stories we heard,

all the pictures we saw, fueled the love for God's people that aren't just gathered

here, but internationally.

And it helps us understand that our mission is greater than just what happens in our own area.

And even though we don't often see or cannot firsthand experience what's going

on, we know that Jesus is there moving and Jesus is there doing incredible things.

And so we praise God for that. Folks, this last year, I saw a lot of joy in giving.

Now, I saw a lot of joy in the commitments that were made at Faith Promise.

Do you remember what our Faith Promise commitments were? No.

It was over $48,000, the Faith Promises we made.

I wish I could stand here today and tell you that we made that.

No, we fell short about $18,000.

But can I tell you what was brought in because of your commitment to Faith Promise?

It covered our World Evangelism Fund commitment that we made, $30,000.

And so we can praise the Lord for that. God gave us exactly what we needed.

And so we can praise the Lord for that. As a result of that,

our church is going to be, again this year, awarded the Church of Excellence

status with the Church of the Nazarene.

We can praise the Lord. You know, to get the church of excellent status,

you give a 5.7% of your tithes and offering away to world evangelism.

But this year, because of your generosity, we were able to give 6.7% of that.

Boy, you overachievers. That's great. Your generosity, your love for others.

It just blows me away. And that's just a little piece of the pie there.

I've got to tell you, we've not just held our joy in here, but we've taken it out into our community.

And again, I just want to thank Pastor Quincy and our children's workers,

all those involved with our children's ministry, our youth ministry that were involved too in this,

because we got to participate in the Independence Day parade,

and we were the only one that had a gigantic elephant going through town.

Enormous Edna made her appearance. And just seeing that elephant,

it brought joy to people's faces.

They just could not believe that thing. And then later when Edna showed up at

our VBS, even though it was a little windy at times, people still were smiling

as they were driving by saying, what's going on over there?

Is there a circus in town or what? And it was, the circus was in town for Vacation Bible School.

We've had other opportunities that we engaged our community.

Now that brought joy to us.

A handful of us were here for the Unbreakable Families on the Saturday when

we went and raked leaves downtown in Homedale.

And that was a lot of fun. We hardly made a dent in all the leaves that were

there and the leaves were still on the tree, but we had fun raking up what we

could. There's other ways in which we engaged our community,

and that brought joy to our hearts.

Not just a sense of happiness, but a happiness that endures that's deeper than just the emotion.

And so we were able to enjoy that. Again, our children's ministry went out for

the safe and sane during the Halloween holiday there and was able to engage

our community again and bring joy and an invitation to come to church.

And so lots of great things. We love and trust Jesus, even though we haven't seen him.

We're all about his mission and all about his work.

And last this morning, my fifth point, I want you to know that God is actively

saving you. Again, let me read verse 9.

We have this joy unspeakable and full of glory. Why?

Because you are receiving the end of your faith. That is the salvation of your souls.

Boy, I thought I had to wait till heaven to experience salvation.

Well, ultimate salvation, yeah. But you can experience salvation right here and right now.

It's a little something that we like to call a tangible growth, a growing in grace.

Sanctification, taking a step in Jesus, every step you take that's closer to

him, you're growing, you're experiencing the salvation that God has promised

you. We can praise the Lord for that.

Here's some ways that you can see how God's moved and how God is saving in our

congregation, through our congregation.

These are things which we give praise, honor, and glory to God for.

God is actively at work. This year, not only did we baptize 22 people into Christ,

but we also brought in 26 new members to our church, 26 people,

26 of you committed to church membership.

That's huge in a day and age that we live in that's not very committal to most

things. So I want to say thank you for your commitment.

Those of you that were already church members, thank you for your example and

being active participants in the ministry that happens here.

For those of you that are new members, thank you for the commitment that you

made to say, Yeah, I'll take that step of faith. Let's see what church membership's all about.

Some of you voted for the first time in our church elections today.

Yeah, maybe it was a little boring. That's okay. They're not always exciting,

but I got to say thank you for stepping up and representing Christ in our congregation that way.

This last year, our worship average for the whole year of 25,

26, so last March until last Sunday, our average increased by 40 people.

Praise the Lord. Hallelujah. Yes. That is because of your diligence to invite people.

It's because of your love for Christ to reach out and invite anyone to come.

It's a testament to your willingness when we have new folks come in to welcome

them in to say, hey, you're not a stranger. You're just like family.

And you know, our average this year was one short of 260. We're at 259 for this last year.

Last year, our average, the year before I should say, was 219.

The year before that, you know what the average was? 197.

The Lord has brought 59 plus three.

We're talking, what, 62 people in the last two years, new people on average

to our worship services.

We can thank the Lord for that. Hallelujah.

It wasn't just our Sunday morning worship time, though.

You know, because of our discipleship efforts, we're able to report a discipleship average.

That's going to Sunday school. It's coming to Wednesday night.

It's some special things we do at The Rock. and then with the CLC,

Christian Learning Club for the kids.

And everyone's only counted once. They keep the pastor honest by only counting people one time.

And we're able to report an average of 155 for our discipleship ministries.

Now, that's significant because the year before it was only 100.

And the year before that, it was significantly

less. Well, maybe not significantly. I think it was in the 90s.

But the Lord has brought people that are interested in learning the Bible and

in studying the Word of God.

That's what our discipleship ministries are all about, is getting into the Word and studying the Word.

And if you don't go to Sunday school, if you don't go to Wednesday night,

if you are not involved in a Bible study with a small group,

I just want to encourage you to plug in somewhere.

Boy, they're awesome. We've got some amazing teachers in this church.

We've got big classes. We've got small classes.

But there's a place for everyone to be connected, to be plugged in.

Now, I say all that because those are tangible ways to see that God is moving

and that God is actively continuing to save people and to bring them here,

not only just here to hear the word, but here to plug in and to be involved.

One thing that we did last year that we're continuing this year,

and I just want to let you know about it, is as part of our intentional effort to disciple others,

as part of our intentional effort to help people grow in grace,

as part of that effort to help people be sanctified, we continue to have our

Right Now Media subscription available to everyone for free.

If you don't have that, let me know. I'll make sure you get in on that.

It's a whole bunch of great discipleship materials. You can have your own small

group Bible study with your family, with your neighborhood, with your friends, whoever you want.

And it's all right there on your phone. You get on your smart TV and it's world-class

biblical teaching that's on there.

And so if you don't have that, I just want to encourage you to get that.

If you have small kids or grandkids, there's some incredible children's programs

on there. You know, you kind of wonder about TV these days.

What kind of Christian or what kind of entertainment are kids getting?

Well, Right Now Media has all of this Christian entertainment that's entertainment,

but it's also discipleship at the same time.

And it's available to everyone in our church for free.

And if you run into someone that's out in the world and they're struggling with

something, you can give them the QR code.

They can scan that and get Right Now Media for them too.

The church pays that for all of us. And so we can say thanks be to God that

it's a 24-7 discipleship environment that we really are in.

You know, this year, and like I said, I'm going to close with this.

How many times have I said that already?

Once or twice, three times maybe. But we're looking ahead, and we've already

started this year talking about being better.

Better is our theme. And as you read my pastor's report, you'll see I set out

several goals for our church.

On behalf of you, going to the Lord, saying, Lord, would you make this happen?

These are specific goals.

These are measurable goals. These are attainable goals. These are reasonable goals.

These are goals that are time-sensitive because we could do this in a year.

And let me just share some of them for those of you that don't have the report.

The first thing that I put out there is I would love for us to see 24 people saved in this next year.

24 people make a first-time commitment to Jesus. Do you think God can do that?

Do you believe these scriptures that are written on the sides of our sanctuary?

If we believe that, then maybe 24 wasn't a high enough goal.

But I think we can attain that. But it's going to take all of us working together

to invite people, not just to church, but to invite people to Christ.

God is actively saving us, so we must be actively saving others as well,

right? So we're going to see 24 people saved.

One of the goals that I would love to see happen is the Lord is continuing to grow us.

Maybe the Lord will bring about a 300 average for us in this year.

300 people consistently meeting in here. Guess what? We had 303 last week.

That was just like a normal Sunday. Boy, isn't it great?

Isn't it great that God just continues to bring people, that you continue to

make this a priority to come?

God is actively saving us. He's actively saving people, and he wants his house to be filled.

As a matter of fact, I've set us a big goal. Rich, are you ready for this?

Hang on. What if we had 500 in here on Easter Sunday, on Resurrection Sunday? Is it possible?

Yeah. Will we need extra chairs? Oh, yeah.

Will people need to stand behind me on the stage? Definitely.

But let's see it happen. Right?

And that's just Easter Sunday. So we've set an ambitious goal of $493 as far

as our income for our tithes and offerings.

Of course, that's up to your generosity. It's up to the Lord and what you commit with Him on that.

We saw the Lord do that this year. And when the financial reports come out, you'll see that.

I set another goal for us that we send 50 people, that's men,

women, children, teenagers, 50 people to our district camps and retreats this year. That's doable.

A church our size can send 50 and no problem.

And guys, I got some good news for you. Men, they moved the retreat for the

men's retreat into June, the first part of June there. So hopefully that helps you.

It's warmer up there and you don't have to worry about the conflict with Easter and Palm Sunday.

And so I love to take a group of guys. I know I'm going there in June,

but it's going to be great.

Ladies are going to go to retreat. The kids are going to go.

And just a quick plug, if you're going to send your kids to any of the camps.

Registration's open now.

And if you get in now and register them, it's going to save you like 25 to 50

bucks getting in early. And so I just want to throw that plug out there.

Last but not least, there's going to be more. The board and I haven't even talked

about their goals for our church this year.

We'll have our first board meeting coming up in a couple of weeks.

One of the goals, and we're halfway there already, is to send two fully funded

mission teams to Honduras this year. We've got one fully funded team getting

ready to go and another one that's building.

If you have interest, there is a form out there. We're going to go again in November.

Melanie put my name down, so I guess I'm going with you in November for the Thanksgiving time.

And so make sure you get your name on there and sign up for that.

I say all this just to say God is doing amazing things and we're going to be a part of it.

We're not just really spectators either. We're active participants, or you can be.

It's your choice if you'll jump in and be engaged with that.

Because you know what? The people that we minister to aren't the only ones that

are blessed. It's we that get blessed too.

It's we that get the joy unspeakable when God moves in such a way.

It's joy unspeakable in those private moments when we get to pray with someone

to receive Christ as their Savior. when we get to encourage them to take a step

of faith, we get the joy that comes, that lasts through all eternity.

And yeah, there's rewards being stored up in heaven. Thanks be to God for that.

But our focus is on what God's doing right now in saving people and sanctifying

people and setting people apart for his great glory.

This morning, as we wrap up this part of our worship service,

and I've been kind of going a little long because I'm waiting for our tellers

to say, okay, we're ready. So there's a method to my madness here.

But in this moment, we're going to take the Lord's Supper together.

And as we take this together, it's a supper of unity.

It calls back to when Jesus met with his disciples on the night that he was betrayed.

When he broke bread with them, when he shared the new wine with them,

when he was there even being betrayed by Judas, that there was a special,

special supper that was given.

And at this supper, Jesus said, as you know, take and eat this bread.

This bread is my body broken for you. Take and eat.

And in the cup of the new covenant, he said, take and drink.

This is my blood, which is poured out for you.

This is the cup of the new agreement.

This is the cup of how things are going to be now. And in having this cup, you drink it.

It represents the sins that are washed away. Jesus' blood that was spilled for

you to blot out all of your sin, not just yours, but the sin of every person

here, the sin of every person that would ever accept Christ as their Savior.

Jesus spilled his blood out. And we take of this today. We take of this to honor

Christ, to remember him.

But we take of this today as...

Really a sign of our unity together, wanting what God wants,

wanting to know God more, to know others more, wanting to love God more and

to love one another more, and wanting to share God with God more and sharing God with others more.

That's our mission, folks. This is why we take this.

It's for the past remembering. It's further now as we think about our mission

in unity, but it's also for the future.

It's also thinking of who's going to join us around this meal next time we do it.

Who's going to be new to Christ? Who's going to be one of those 24 we're going

to see come to Christ, faith in Christ, and be able to participate in this?

So there's this past element, there's this future or present element,

and there's this future element that's all taking place right now.

And so as we eat this this morning and drink this, there is a living hope that

is at work, a living hope in the body and the blood of Jesus.

What I'd like to ask is the ushers to come now, and Pastor Jevin's going to

come and assist me here with that.

And as they're coming, let's just prepare our hearts.

We've got a lot of gratitude for what Jesus has done in our congregation this last year.

And I know it's not the most eloquent sermon, but I hope it brings about this

joy unspeakable in your life that is full of the glory of God,

God's presence with you.

And so here in just a few minutes after we pray, we're going to eat.

We're going to enjoy this together and just say, thank you, God, for who you are.

Let's pray together. Father, thank you for these elements that are being distributed even now.

God, I pray that you would bless the meaning of this to our lives.

Lord, what you've done in the past through Jesus, what you're doing right now

and saving us now, God, and Lord, what you're going to do for the future,

not just for us, but for others as well.

And so, Lord, we just ask that you'd bless this time together.

May it be special and meaningful to us in our faith, growth,

and walk with you. It's in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen.

I want to thank you for joining today's sermon podcast. You can find a copy

of today's sermon, as well as other sermons, and the sermon outline from today

on our church's website,

www.mvcnaz.org.

It is my prayer also that you will seek out a church home that recognizes the authority of the Bible.