The Peace of an Unexpected Reconciliation

Awesome, awesome.

Yes, my name is Russ, and I did mess up the announcements last week, which is probably why this whole section is empty.

Um I told them they didn't have to come this morning uh that that that we weren't having services, so I apologize for the confusion.

We are meeting today at 9, and then we'll also meet at 11.

And then tonight will be our first Christmas Eve gathering at 5 p.m.

here.

And then tomorrow uh we will not gather um for anything tomorrow, and then we'll be back Tuesday for two Christmas Eve gatherings, one at 3, the other at 5.

And we'd love for uh you to leverage that as an opportunity to invite friends, family, uh, loved ones, people, neighbors, coworkers uh to come and hear the gospel of Jesus.

That's why we're here.

We're here about Jesus.

That's what it that's what it's all about.

It's everything Jesus, nothing but Jesus.

It's all about Jesus.

And let me just let me just mention this.

You know, as Jonah read our Giving Liturgy, um uh I you know, I want you to know this, that we we are not a church that wants your money.

It's not it's not that we want something from you, we want something for you.

Um but but let me give you a little practical um thing or or a couple ideas to think about.

There's probably at least a third of our church that that doesn't give anything.

I mean, maybe have never given at least one time, uh, but certainly do not give regularly.

And so I if you're in that category, there's all kinds of reasons.

There might be it might be fear of poverty, fear that you don't have money to pay bills or pay a house note or all that.

Man, if I give if I give to the church, then then I I'm not gonna be able to meet my needs.

And I understand that, but I but I will tell you this, that God, and it's one of our core values of our church, you cannot outgive God.

You cannot outgive God.

And I want to I want to I want to challenge you.

As a matter of fact, I'll say this.

If you give, pick a percentage.

10% is a tithe, and that's the that's the word that the Bible gives us, the tenth, the tithe, but but pick a percentage, 5%, 8%, and you give that, you come and bring that offering to the Lord for nine days, and you can't, if you can't tell me something tangibly about the way God blesses you, I'll make sure you get every penny back that you gave over that 90 period.

Now the second category is people that I don't know, maybe the best way to say it is they tip.

They tip.

If they have a few extra dollars, they bring it and they give it.

And and that's that's better than not giving anything, but it still doesn't really dig down deep in our heart in a way that acknowledges worship of a God who is sovereign and provides everything to us.

And it it keeps us from experiencing the full blessing that God wants to have.

And then there's the category of those who are you of you that are so faithful.

You are so faithful.

And I want to just encourage you that we never get to a point where we probably stop wanting to be challenged to give.

I think the Lord wants us to continue to step into the deep waters of our faith.

And one of those areas that we can step into the deep waters is to give sacrificially.

And so I just want to encourage you, it would be it, it would be monumental in your relationship with Jesus.

And that's what really matters.

The practical part is it helps us move forward the vision that God has given us.

And so um, and and take advantage of the year-end giving.

And so I just want to challenge you with that, encourage you with that, and and and please invite people to join us over the next few days as we celebrate um the Christmas message.

I want to I want to share a little song with you, and hopefully that song will just play kind of under me as I'm talking a little bit.

It's a song that if you are if you're my age or a little bit older, um, or maybe a little bit younger, most of even some of you younger people might know who John Lennon is and who Yoko Ono was.

They wrote a song uh that was um that you might recognize, it's Happy Christmas.

The war is over.

And John Lennon wrote this song and they performed it in in protest uh surrounding the Vietnam War.

And their goal was to generate a campaign.

And this song was part of the campaign.

There were billboards, there were all types of activist type things that they did because they wanted to see the world um move toward peace, where war would be gone.

And the song was released in 1971 by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, and they were it was part of this broader peace campaign, and the choir uh sings when they when they sing, when they produced it, uh the choir sings, the war is over if you want it.

The war is over if you want it.

And so this song um has a similar message to a lot of the other songs.

You probably heard know the song Imagine, Imagine, um, that was so famous by John Lennon.

Lennon, here's what Lennon and Yoko Ono believed.

They believed that peace could be achieved through activism.

And so he and and Yoko not only wrote music that went out to the public, they rented dozens of billboards that said the war is over if you want it.

And they hosted other events and and and and and we all of us can appreciate the Beatles and John Lennon and their musical um abilities.

We get all that.

But here's the problem is they want they were they were activists and they were uh promoting activism to try to get rid of something called peace, when in reality they needed to be introduced to a person who is peace.

And that person is Jesus Christ.

And so Lennon's song and his call for peace, it resonated with much of humanity.

It resonated with our country.

But we all know that that that song did not accomplish what they had hoped it would accomplish because it is not a song that the world needs, it is a person, and his name is Jesus.

And so the road to peace seems like a major uphill battle.

Do you ever feel this way where it's just, man, I don't feel that we'll ever experience the kind of peace in our world that we want to experience it.

I I you might even say to yourself, I don't know if I will ever experience the kind of peace that will really fulfill me and give me hope for the future.

I understand that.

We feel like peace is an uphill battle, especially in our world today.

Things that are happening in the Middle East, things that are happening between Ukraine and Russia, other places in the world.

But we're not just talking about peace between countries and peace that is the absence of fighting and war.

There is a deeper peace that we all long for.

And we don't just long for peace with others, but we long for eternal peace.

We all want peace for our souls.

We want to lay our head down at night on a pillow.

And when you're staring at the ceiling fan and you can't fall asleep, and you're wrestling with some of these things, what we desperately want is a peace for our souls that will give us the kind of rest and give us the kind of hope that God wants us to have.

It's deeper peace.

It's a peace with others, but it's also an internal peace for our souls.

And so as we continue our series, Unexpected Christmas, we'll see that Christmas is a celebration and it is a declaration that peace is possible.

Amen?

Just say that with me.

Peace is possible.

Let's say that together.

Peace is possible.

Peace is possible.

And so, but it's it's a different peace than we might think of.

It's the peace that Christmas brings us, the peace that Christmas is worth talking about, it's worth going for, it's worth chasing after.

And it doesn't come through political activism, because if it did, we would have experienced this kind of peace a long time ago.

It comes through a person, and that person is Jesus.

And so the big idea today is this is that Christmas is the beginning of God's peace entering the world.

Christmas is the beginning of God's true peace entering into the world.

So can I pray for us?

Let's pray just for a second.

Let's pray that God will speak to us.

Let's pray.

Father, we pray.

God, we ask in the name of Jesus that you would move in our hearts.

And God, we ask for the power of the Holy Spirit to flow through this room.

God, as we have sung songs and lifted up the name of Jesus through through music.

And now as we lift up the name of Jesus through the teaching of the Word, I pray, God, and we invite you through the Holy Spirit to bring to the surface things or obstacles that we need to have breakthrough.

And so we can experience and walk and know this person who is peace, Jesus Christ.

So God speak to us over the next few minutes.

In Jesus' name we pray, and everybody said together.

And so throughout this series, we focused on this main passage in Luke chapter 2.

Luke 2 · chapter mention

If you got your Bibles, we'll be in Luke chapter 2 to begin with.

Luke 2 · chapter mention

We'll have a few other scriptures that we'll look at.

But we found out through studying Luke chapter 2, we've seen this idea of an unexpected birth announcement, this unexpected birth announcement that was given to an unexpected audience with the shepherds.

Luke 2 · chapter mention

We looked at that a couple of weeks ago.

And this morning I want to pick up where we left off.

Two weeks ago, we focused on the angels proclaiming joy for the world.

And so this week I want to look at another part of the angel's declaration.

Luke chapter 2, verses 13 and 14.

Luke 2:13

He says, Suddenly, the angel was joined by a vast host of others, the armies of heaven, praising God and saying, Glory to God in highest heaven.

And let's say it together.

Let's say this next line together.

And peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased.

Peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased.

And so, first thing I want you to see this morning, if you're a note taker, is that peace on earth proclaim.

Peace on earth proclaimed.

We are here to proclaim the peace of God.

We are here to proclaim that Jesus is peace.

We're here to proclaim that peace is not something we achieve through activism.

Peace is something that we find in a person.

And so the angels are praising God.

They declare this message of peace.

And at the same time, the world enjoyed a measure of peace.

As a matter of fact, we call it the Pox Romana, the peace of Rome.

The peace of Rome.

It was a time in history.

And this is what I love about the Christmas story.

This is why we teach this every year.

It's the gospel message that Jesus is born in a time and a period where there was general peace.

Now there was tension and there was there were there were different uh political entities that were that were uh in conflict.

But but at this point in history, there is no world war.

There is no major conflict because Rome has conquered.

Rome has won a measure of peace for a period of time.

And God sovereignly saw this opportunity.

He created this opportunity, and in the midst of this poxramata, the peace of Rome, Jesus is born.

And the significance of that is that people could travel from country to country because there was peace, because Rome had built a system of roads and traveling opportunities where people could go and proclaim what they had seen and what they had heard.

And so this proclamation of peace on earth, it was surprising because it did not align with the prevailing expectations of peace.

The peace that the angels announced in that moment where they proclaim that Jesus has come, it was not going to come through military victory.

It wasn't going to come through political change, but peace was going to come through a person.

And the Christmas story is so unique because it doesn't come through a person who is a grown man or a grown woman.

It comes through the birth of a little baby who is born in humility.

And when I say humility, I mean born in an animal, cave, stall, manger.

You know the story.

You would never think that royalty would come into the world the way that Jesus did.

But he did so with purpose.

And the peace that he came to proclaim, it is a comprehensive peace.

It's not just a world without war.

It's not just a state of well-being.

It's not just harmony.

It is a complete, comprehensive, holistic type of peace.

The Jewish people called it shalom.

And the peace that was proclaimed, it refers to a couple different types of peace.

It refers to relational peace.

The peace that is proclaimed, it's a relational peace.

The angels came proclaiming a peace that would exist between individuals, family members, nations, groups, people groups, different nationalities, different races, different family members.

And in the biblical context, the peace that we see primarily here is the reconciling peace that God provides through Jesus that brings back a connection between the creator of the universe and all of us who've been created in his image.

That is the relational peace.

And so, first of all, God wanted to reconcile himself to us and us to him.

And so it's relational peace.

Ephesians 2.13 says this.

But now you have been united with Christ Jesus.

Once you were far away from God, you know what our mission statement, Church of the Grove, is we exist.

We exist to reach people who are far from God and to lead them to become followers of Jesus.

And so it says, it says, those that are far from God, once you were far away from God, but now you've been brought near to Him through the blood of Christ.

And so this peace is a peace that extends to breaking down walls of hostility between different cultures, different people groups.

And then ultimately it breaks down the hostility between us, between me and my Heavenly Father.

And so we see relational peace in verse 13.

The peace that Jesus experienced, that Jesus experienced came through his death.

Because of his death on the cross and his blood that was spilled, the blood that ran down that cross.

We are able to be reunited with him, united with him in a relationship.

This is the miracle of Christmas.

This is the Christmas miracle.

When I was probably about 10 or 11 years old, I walked into my den in my house, and I saw a miracle.

It was a little motorcycle.

And my I I remember asking, I I told my dad one time, I'd love to have a little motorcycle.

You know, to me, it wasn't a little motorcycle.

I wanted just a motorcycle for a little kid.

And my dad said, My dad had a word he would say, I can't say it in church.

But but that was the response I got when I asked for a motorcycle.

But when I walked into the den that morning, I saw that motorcycle.

I was like, this is a miracle.

This is a miracle.

And and it but but what I'm talking about and what what God provides through Jesus is truly a miracle.

Whatever's under the tree, hey, that's great.

That's wonderful.

I hope you have the best Christmas, and I hope you get everything you want.

But I'm telling you, if you miss out on the central message of Christmas, that Jesus has come to bring peace, to reconcile us to the Father, we miss out on what God wants for us.

And so this is the miracle of Christmas.

God comes in the flesh.

He's born into humanity, he's born as a human being, and he's born for the purpose of dying.

And through his death, he would reconcile sinful creation back to himself.

And so this is the story's climax.

This is the apex of the whole story.

Everything and all of Scripture builds to the point where Jesus dies on the cross and in his death and his resurrection and his promise to return, he brings us back into a reconciled relationship with the Heavenly Father.

So do not miss out on that this Christmas.

Jesus came and he died.

Now we can have a reconciled relationship with him.

John Stott, theologian, great pastor and theologian from the United Kingdom, he says this.

He says the gospel is not only the announcement of reconciliation between God and humanity, but also between one human being and another.

For the cross not only reconciles us to God, it also reconciles us to one another.

I love that.

It's a picture of the cross, it's this vertical reconciliation between us and the Heavenly Father, and this horizontal reconciliation between us and friends or families or coworkers.

And I know that we're not going to get along perfectly with everybody, but we, even though there's tension and there's difficulty, we can have peace.

We can.

And so so look at Ephesians.

Let's go back to Ephesians here.

I just want to read through verses 14 through 18.

For Christ Himself has brought peace to us.

He united Jews and Gentiles.

You can circle those two words, Jews and Gentiles.

He united Jews and Gentiles into one people when in his own body on the cross, he broke down the wall of hostility that separated us.

He did this by ending the system of law with its commandments and regulations.

He made peace between the Jews and the Gentiles by creating in himself one new people from the two groups.

In Paul's perspective, there's basically two groups of people on this earth: people who know God and people that don't know God.

Now, in his context, in this context, he is referring to Israel as being the people who have a relationship with God, and Gentiles are everybody else on this planet who did not have the privilege of being born into the Jewish race or the Jewish people.

And so what Paul is saying is there is going to be a new people.

He says, in creating in himself one new people from the two groups, together as one body, Christ reconciled both groups to God by means of his death on the cross, and our hostility toward each other was put to death.

Verse 17, he brought this good news.

This is the gospel.

Good news.

Good news of what?

Look at the Bible, look at the screen.

Good news of peace.

The good news of peace to You Gentiles.

I would say if not 100%, there's pretty close to 100% of us who are Gentiles.

Is there anybody who has a Jewish background?

You do?

Awesome.

That's awesome.

Some of us do.

Some of us, there's connections.

But most people in our community are probably what we would consider biblically from a biblical standpoint were Gentiles.

And he says, This good news of peace to you, Gentiles who were far away from him, and peace to the Jews who were near.

None of us can come to the Father through the same Holy Spirit.

I'm sorry.

Let me read that again.

I said none.

That's not correct.

Scratch that.

Edit that out.

Now all of us.

What does he say?

All of us, not none.

All of us.

That's not a lot of hope.

None.

None of us.

That's not very hopeful.

All of us can come to the Father through the same Holy Spirit because of what Christ has done for us.

It's the gospel.

It's the Christmas message.

All of us, all of us can come.

All people groups, every race, every tribe, every nation, every person has the opportunity because of Christ and his birth and his life and his death and his resurrection, his promise to return.

And so Paul is talking about these two groups, Jews and Gentiles.

And in the Jewish temple, they literally had a wall that divided them.

And so the Jewish people could go inside that wall because they were the chosen people.

But if you weren't Jewish, you had to stay outside of that wall because you weren't qualified.

Here's what Paul is telling us.

This is the message that we understand about Christmas is God breaks down every dividing wall of hostility.

And there no longer has to be a separation between the Jews and the Gentiles or this group or this group.

We can be one in Christ.

It is Christ who unifies us and reconciles us.

And so you can imagine the animosity potentially between people groups and God's people.

You understand that.

You see it as you read through the scriptures.

We talked about a character, a man, who lived and was significant in his life during World War II.

His name was Diedrich Bonhoeffer.

The sad part of Diedrich Bonhoeffer's life is that he was within days, just days away from the war ending, and he would have been set free.

But they had built the gallows.

And as the Allied forces began to make their way into Germany, Bonhoeffer was hung and killed.

But before he was walked out to the gallows, he had asked if he could gather his fellow inmates, his fellow prisoners.

He was asked, he asked, can I please share communion with my brothers one more time?

And so I some measure of compassion or or accommodation, these these Nazis agreed, and they brought bread and they brought the wine and Bonhoeffer began to share the communion service.

And in the midst of all of these political prisoners, there was one Nazi jailer who decided to come and partake of communion with this group that he'd have been guarding.

And I'll be honest with you, I don't know the whole story.

I don't know if that man had somewhere in his past had put his faith in Jesus.

Certainly he had renewed his faith because he'd heard the teaching of Diedrich Bonhoeffer.

But can't you see the significance?

Can you imagine how how powerful this moment is?

There's an excellent movie that's out right now on the life of Diedrich Bonhoeffer.

And I'd rather, if you're going to go spend money and help uh you know support uh production companies, go go spend money on that movie because it's a movie that shares the life of Diedrich Bonhoeffer who had given his life for the sake of the gospel.

And so he extends the invitation for this for this um uh prison guard to come partake and to partake of the bread representing the body of Jesus and the wine or the juice that represents the blood of Jesus.

And the act of sharing the Lord's Supper in such a situation was a poignant, powerful statement that forgiveness and grace are offered even to those who are in opposition in a world war.

Even those that are part of this machinery of death are able to hear the gospel and respond.

And so Christmas is the beginning of God's peace, reconciling us to Himself and reconciling all of us one to another.

No matter what our differences may be, Christmas is this celebration.

Christmas is about peace.

And so it's, as I said, it's it's a it's a relational peace, but it's also an inner peace, inner peace that starts in your soul, it works in your soul and then makes it what it's its way out into your life in practical, tangible ways.

It refers to tranquility and comfort and contentment.

Those are the the fruit of the peace of God that we're talking about.

And this is the peace that Jesus talks about in John 14, where he says this in verse 27 of John 14.

He says, I'm leaving you with a gift, peace of mind and heart.

I'm leaving you with a gift, peace of mind and heart.

Who wants peace of mind and heart?

Who wants that?

Yes, we all we all do.

Certainly we do.

And he says, and the peace that I give is a gift the world cannot give.

Let me say that again.

Jesus says, I offer you a peace that the world cannot give.

I don't know about you, but I feel the same pressure every year about this time.

What am I gonna get my wife for Christmas?

How can I make her happy?

And I mean, I can't, this next year will be 30 years.

Every year's the same.

I feel this pressure.

And my wife tells me over and over, I don't need anything.

And for a second I'm like, but man, I'm right back to the same thing.

I I know if I show up indie hand empty indie, if I show up empty-handed, it's bad.

Thank you, Michael.

I gave you this gift thirty years ago.

The scripture talks about taking captive our thoughts.

So inner peace.

Jesus says, I'm leaving you with a gift, peace of mind and heart.

And the peace I give you is the gift the world cannot give, so don't be troubled or afraid.

Don't be troubled or afraid.

Inner peace is not based on external circumstances, it's it's it is a spiritual assurance that God is with us.

He is sovereign over us.

And every, listen, listen to me.

Everything that comes into your mind that the enemy wants to throw into your mind about stress or things that aren't true, you've got to take those thoughts captive and meditate on what Jesus says.

He says, so don't be troubled or afraid.

This is huge.

The world full of chaos, anxiety, all the things that we pursue.

We're so anxious to find this peace, this this peace that surpasses understanding.

And we know it, we know from what Jesus teaches us, it's not something that can be found in the world.

It can't be found inside of a box or a wrapped gift.

It is found through the person of Jesus because Jesus Himself is peace.

Paul says this in Philippians 4 7.

He says, Then you will experience God's peace, which exceeds anything we can understand.

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

Isn't that awesome?

The word of God teaching us.

Charles Spurgeon says this.

It is the peace of the soul that has been reconciled to God.

And so finally, what does that lead us to?

It leads us to a restorative peace.

A restorative peace.

See, Christmas isn't just a celebration of the relational and inner peace that we talked about.

It's important, that's great, that's important.

It comes through Christ, but it is also about a restorative peace.

And this restorative peace speaks to cosmic and redemptive peace that Christ initiated through his life and his death and resurrection.

And it is a peace that restores not just the individual, but it will restore everything in the creative order in all of the world, all of the universe.

Everything will be restored back to the way God intended it to be when he created it in the first place and before sin entered the equation.

Colossians, Paul writes this, Colossians 1, 19 and 20, it says, For God in all of his fullness was pleased to live in Christ.

And through him, God reconciled everything to himself.

He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ's blood on the cross.

He reconciled everything to himself.

And it this includes humanity, but it also includes everything in all creation.

When we read Genesis and we read the very first few chapters of Genesis, we see where there's the fall.

We call it the fall.

It's a doctrinal understanding.

The fall is a result of mankind turning away from God and doing things in their own strength, their own way.

And so when that happened, the relationship with God was broken, the relationship with one another was broken.

But all, all creation experiences the brokenness as a result of sin.

Listen, we can legislate everything that we can think of in our power to try to bring our environment back to the way that we think it should be.

But you can try everything.

You can pass bills, you can try to physically try to make sure that we keep the earth clean and pure.

It's futile without the restorative peace that God will bring to all of creation at some point in the future history.

That is the best environmental plan that we could have.

And so he reconciled everything to himself.

And this restorative peace won't be fully experienced until we get to Revelation.

Matter of fact, let me just read out of Revelation 21 that talks about a new heaven and a new earth and how Jesus will come and he'll begin this restorative peace that is making everything that is wrong and unjust in this world will be restored to what is right and just.

And the way it was intended in the beginning.

And here's what, here's what, um, here's what it says here in Revelation.

Revelation speaks about a new heaven, a new earth, and that Christ will come and there'll be a banquet, there'll be a celebration, and everything will be restored back to the way that God intended it to be.

Now, can I go back to Luke chapter 2, verses 13 and 14, where we started today?

Luke 2:13

Says this.

Suddenly the angel was joined by a vast host of others.

The armies of heaven praising God and saying, Glory to God in highest heaven, and peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased.

And so the army of angels proclaim this truth.

They proclaim this reality.

Peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased.

And so peace is both inclusive and exclusive.

The peace of God is inclusive in the fact that everyone is welcome.

Everyone is invited, everyone is able to come and have a relationship with God through Christ.

All people are invited.

Everyone in our community is invited.

But it is not only inclusive, there is a measure of exclusivity.

The peace is for those with whom God is pleased.

So if you want peace that God offers, he must be pleased with you.

You say, and I know my response is, man, if you knew what was going on in my life, my mind, my heart, man, I don't feel like God would be very pleased.

But here's the beauty of the gospel.

When God sees me because of my faith in Christ, when he sees me, he doesn't see those areas of sin.

He sees a transformed heart restored back to him.

And in spite of my frailties and my faults and my sin that I still might struggle with, he doesn't see that.

He sees Jesus.

And so, in that sense, what I'm talking about, there is an exclusive peace.

We must be found in Christ.

But if we are in Christ, that is our hope.

Matthew 16, verses 24, 25, and 26.

Matthew 16:24

Then Jesus said to his disciples, If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross and follow me.

If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it.

But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it.

And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul?

Is anything worth more than your soul?

So Christmas is the beginning of God, bringing peace.

Peace enters the world as a person.

It comes through Jesus.

And so this morning, there may be some of you that are here this morning, and you've never, you've never invited the peace of God into your life.

You've never turned and repented and believed.

Or maybe there's a point when you were younger, you were a child, and for some reason it was so much easier to believe, to respond.

When you were younger, but you go to high school, you go to college, and you get out in the world, and the world beats you down.

It tells you a false narrative.

And for some reason, we buy into it sometimes for a season in our life, and God is calling you back to Him this morning through this Christmas season, through this Christmas celebration.

He's calling you back.

So maybe you've never been introduced to Jesus, or you need to come back to Jesus.

Regardless, you're in one of those two groups, one of those two camps.

This message is for you.

So would you pray with me?

Let's pray together.

Let's just pray.

Father, thank you for the peace that surpasses all understanding, that that offers us an invitation to join our Heavenly Father in a restored, reconciled, renewed, refreshed relationship.

If you've never put your faith in Christ, I want you to hear this that He loves you, He cares about you so much that He would send His Son on that first Christmas to be born as a baby.

And he would grow into manhood, able to speak our language, able to touch us, able to heal, able to perform miracles, able to teach the truth, and able to give us new life.

And so if you need to put your faith in Christ this morning, I want to invite you to do so.

It comes through repenting, which is turning from trying to gain hope and peace, joy, all the fruits of the Spirit.

You try to gain them in your own strength or your own activities, and you turn and you repent and you believe and you say, I believe that Jesus came to save me from my sins.

For those of you that have wandered away a little bit, you feel distant from God.

I can tell you this: God didn't move.

And the beauty of it is God is waiting right where you left off with open arms to receive you in to a relationship that is reconciled with Him and into a family of others who have been reconciled to their Heavenly Father.

If that's you this morning, I want to encourage you.

If you are responding to Jesus for the first time, let somebody know.

Let somebody know.

We want to encourage you to let a family member know, let a friend know.

And for those of you that have kind of wandered away, let me just encourage you to come back either tonight or to one of our two services on Tuesday.

And let's continue to celebrate, and you have the vantage point.

You have the opportunity as we end this year and move into a new year to begin your relationship with God afresh, renewed, restored.

And so, Father, we love you, we thank you.

As we come to this conclusion this morning, we ask that you would work through us, God, as we sing this response back to you, because you are the King of kings and the Lord of Lords.

And we thank you for being born, we thank you for your life of righteousness, and we thank you for you surrendering your life.

God, it sounds so strange, but we are so thankful for your crucifixion and your death because of what it provides for us, what it does in us.

And God, thank you for the resurrection that is a such a vivid picture of what we get to long for in the future.

Being reunited with our loved ones, spending eternity without any brokenness, without any sin, without any imperfections, whole, complete, at rest, at peace.

It's in Jesus' name that we pray.

And everybody said together.

Amen.

Would you stand with me as we close?