Pastor Brodie Kalamen | The Lost Wonder | Nov 30th, 2025

Father, we thank you today for your spirit.

We thank you for your Holy Spirit.

Your spirit who comes, Lord, ministers to each and every heart.

There's no one that's outside of your connection.

You've connected to each and every one of us.

You desire each and every one of us.

You don't need us, but you want us.

And Lord, you've chased after us.

Like the psalmist said, as a good shepherd, you your mercy and your grace follow after us and run us down every day of our life.

Every day, every morning.

You are faithful, and you are new in your faithfulness to us, Lord, and that there's grace, there's grace available to each and every one of us.

And so, Father, we thank you today for your presence.

We thank you for your love for us.

We thank you for your care for us.

We thank you, Lord, that you've drawn us close.

And we thank you, Lord, that we're in your house today.

Amen.

Amen.

God bless you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next time we're gonna do that with the bass, and we'll see how that goes.

How are you?

Whereas uh Jeff could probably do that too, and uh, which would actually be really cool.

How many of you love the bass?

I love the bass, and then we'll do drums, uh, and then uh see what else.

Uh I had a few years ago, um, I was reminded of of this uh this item.

How many of you have ever seen a snow globe?

You've seen this snow globe.

We I actually thought snow globes were kind of creepy.

Mostly because the places where I would go and I would see the snow globes, people would have more than one snow globe.

There'd be like a wall or a mantelpiece full of snow globes.

I'm like, someone has a fascination with snow globes.

And I thought that was a little wild.

That's just me though, so you do you, okay, with snow globes.

But a few years ago, I was reminded when my daughter was little about the snow globes.

And I remember pulling out a box of uh a box of Christmas uh items, and we brought her one of the items that was packed away in our Christmas supplies and a snow globe.

And as an adult, uh it barely registered to me that a snow globe would actually be um something that was unique, and it was simply just another seasonal decoration.

Lived in storage for most of the year.

Um, I had seen it every season, but snow globes uh were familiar to me.

And when I handed it to her, everything changed.

When I wound it up and the music began to play, and there's music playing here.

I'm not gonna wind it up today, though.

You can see me afterwards if you're interested.

But when I wound it up, her hands, like there's something about it.

She pulled it in, she looked at it, she was excited about it, and uh she shook it, she held a breath, she put it beside her bed, you know, at night, and it started that moment, uh, a new tradition in our home that before she would go to bed, I'd have to wind up the snow globe, let it play, shake it, and then she would go to sleep.

And it was one of the little uh habits or little uh little little items that we would do right before she went to bed.

Every swirl, every every uh kind of flake that was um that was coming down, she would just sit and she'd watch it.

In that moment I actually realized something.

What had become ordinary to me was actually extraordinary to her.

And what I had stopped seeing, she saw with a state of wonder.

And what I learned to ignore, she adored and and was amazed by.

In one angle to me, it is meant to stir us inside as part of the global message that was announced to the earth.

When there was an announcement with Mary, it said that she was full of wonder.

When there was an announcement to the shepherds, it says they looked up into the sky and saw the hosts of angels, and they too were full of wonder.

The wise men journeyed towards a star, a bright star.

Wonder again, wondering what that star signified, what was beneath that star.

And then, of course, the visitation in a stable, a wonder moment.

Wonder is a byproduct of nearly every story related to the birth of Jesus Christ.

Wonder, and I don't believe it's uh I don't believe it's it's there without cause.

Wonder isn't an accessory of Christmas, it's the intended atmosphere of Christmas.

Without wonder, it's not Christmas.

It's why we put decorations on our house, it's why we put lights up, it's why we dress up the trees and put certain certain uh uh decor up, it's a part of the wonder of the season.

And the arrival of Jesus and the accompanying atmosphere gives us a glimpse of heaven and his contact with earth in its in its most simple form.

So in the moment that Jesus came to the earth, it was wonder.

There was wonder.

And it's just a hint of what our life will be experienced when we go to heaven and we enter into that eternal place, there's going to be incredible.

I can't even go to express it.

It's part of the reason I think where when you read in the scripture about individuals encountering angelic uh presences, they always fell on their face, and some fell down as if they were dead.

Because they were just overwhelmed with the wonder of the moment.

Wonder's been described as surprise mixed with some admiration, something that's beautiful, something that's unexpected, something that's unfamiliar, something that cannot be fully explained, and that is what Christmas is.

Only if we pause long enough to look at it again.

Wonder is really the soul realizing I can't fully explain this.

And I don't fully get it, but I'm drawn towards it.

And I believe in this season the whole world is full of a state of wonder.

And so this series today is an invitation to hold the story close, to see it again in a fresh light, to let the familiar become astonishing, to rediscover the wonder of his presence with you this season.

The fact that he is Emmanuel, God who is with us.

What a wonderful statement.

He is God with us.

The lens of wonder is important to every believer.

Jesus spoke it clearly.

He says, you need to have faith like a child.

You need to have that wonder like a child, that expectation and anticipation like a child.

If you want to understand the kingdom of heaven, you have to go into it with eyes wide.

The opposite of wonder is fear.

When the angels came, the first thing they said to the shepherds was, fear not, don't be afraid.

We come with good news, good tidings, great joy for all people.

You're gonna hear this message, and it's gonna be a good thing.

But you've got to open up your heart to that is better than good.

It is great news for every individual.

Jesus' birth was announced with wonder.

Psalm 27, verse 4 says this, and this will be our text today.

Psalms 27:4

It says, one thing I ask from the Lord, this is the psalmist David, this only do I seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.

It's a powerful verse.

Psalm 27 isn't written from a cozy moment when you're sitting by a fireplace with a glass full of agnog.

In this situation, David is pressured on every side.

He's surrounded by enemies and danger and uncertainty.

Yet in the middle of the chaos, his prayer is not for safety, his prayer isn't for an escape route, his prayer isn't for exit or for victory.

He doesn't pray for any of those things.

He asks God for wonder.

He chooses to pursue wonder over worry and fear.

When you come into a point of worship, the power of worship is that worship can be a weapon in the hands of a believer.

Because what happens is you lift your eyes up to heaven, and doesn't matter what you're facing in your day or what your future may look like, you look to God and you get caught in the moment of wonder, and the things of earth grow strangely dim when you're looking upon his face.

David chose God's presence over protection.

He knew what was most valuable.

He chose the worship over the worry.

And the first sign of wonder when it's at work is that it rewires your priorities, it brings you into realignment.

In David's situation, it took the gaze off of the threat that he was encountering and put it on God who was seated on the throne in heaven.

And David's one thing that he was asking wasn't that he would just survive, but that he would behold the beauty of the Lord.

Behold the beauty of God.

And when you see from a spiritual lens the wonder and the beauty of God, Paul says it's like it's like it's a multifaceted view of God.

Like you're just caught in a moment of awe and wonder.

There's no other faith that I uh I've been able to uh study or see that that causes you to wonder the way our Christian faith does.

Because we serve the God of wonders, whose actual attribute is I'm going to come to the earth and make you go, wow.

He's the king of glory.

The things that make you go, like glory is like an eagle, when you see an eagle on in full flight and its wings are fully extended, and you're it's like you watch it and you're like, wow, you were created for this.

And this eagle just begins to soar.

That is the wonder of the eagle.

Well, the wonder, the glory of the eagle is a place not like sitting on the ground, but when he's in the sky.

But the glory of our King of Kings and our Lord of Lords is the uh the glory that he carries, is that he carries wonder.

He makes you get caught in a moment of awe in his beauty.

So David says the beauty of the Lord causes you to wonder.

For for those of you who are visual learners, who's a visual learner?

I am a visual learner.

I'm a visual thinker as well.

I we just have a short video for you here just to illustrate the wonder from a creative standpoint.

Now, let me just before we play this, let me just read you one of the verses here in Psalms 19, verse 1 to 4.

Psalms 19:1–4

It says, the heavens declare the glory of God, make you go, oh when you look up, the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

Day after day they pour forth speech.

In other words, you just look up and they speak to you, but not using words, they just declare the wonder of God.

Night after night they reveal his knowledge.

And he says in Psalms 8 again, he says, When I consider the heavens, the work of your fingertips.

Can you imagine this?

The work of his fingers.

Isaiah says he put the stars into place with the work of his fingertips.

What is mankind that you are mindful of us?

When you think of this, watch this video.

And the video can't actually communicate exactly the scale.

How many of you have ever heard of UY Scooty before?

It'd be a good thing to know, since it's one of the largest uh red planets in terms of uh it's a supergiant star and considered by some to be one of the largest known stars.

Um if this was the Earth, one point three million Earths make up the sun.

One point three million earths make up the sun.

Scooty, I love to say someone should name their child Scooty.

I think that would be a great one point three million earths make up the sun.

One sun, how many earths like would fit inside of the UI Scooty would be let's just put it this way, a quadrillion is one with fifteen zeros after it.

So not a hundred thousand, not a million, not a billion, not a trillion, but the next level up.

That's how many earths would fit into Scooty.

One quadrillion, and then multiply that by seven.

Seven quadrillion Earths inside of one star.

It'd be like taking all of British Columbia, and thank God for Chat GPT, because I could not do the math for this, and placing golf balls up to three inch three inches deep in golf balls, covering every coastline, every ravine, every every space that was available across BC and layering them with golf balls, and that wouldn't even equate to the number of Earths required to actually represent the size of that star.

And that's one that God put in place with his fingertips.

And there are many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many more.

But the fact that there, I'm gonna pass this to you.

The fact that that was one, that scientists have been able to look at it now, astronomers, and they're looking at it, and they're saying that there are as many stars in the sky as there are literal grains of sand on the earth.

We've heard that said before, hey.

David says this.

He says, I walk in wonder.

And wonder is not about a dwelling place.

Wonder is a season or a season.

It's more than a dwelling place, it's a habitation, it's a place that David said, I want to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.

He said, David didn't want just a visit.

And I think about uh Christmas, I think about how people live their whole season, live their whole life, and then they wait for that moment of wonder at Christmas time.

And David is saying, you don't have to walk waiting for wonder.

In fact, you can live in it, dwell in it every day of your life.

Wonder is really shaped by proximity.

He's saying, I want to dwell with you, God, I want to be connected with you.

I want to experience you.

And the experience is much different than the explanation.

I can explain to you the size of UT Scoot UI Scooty.

You guys are all learning today.

UI Scooty.

I can explain it to you, but to experience it would be something totally different.

And David said, I don't just want to know it, I want to know it in here.

I want to know it through experience, your goodness, your wonder, your beauty.

He wanted a life shaped by that proximity, dwelling with God.

And it's like Jesus, who who I think about, who went to Nazareth, where he was uh raised, it was his own hometown.

It says that when Jesus went to Nazareth, the people there, as an example to us, who should have seen his lifestyle, should have known his family, ended up becoming the ones who had become the most familiar with him.

And instead of honoring him, they just said, Oh, he's Joseph's son.

He's the son of a carpenter.

And they minimized who he truly was because of their familiarity with him.

And the risk of Christmas is that we become so familiar with who Jesus is, because how many of you have gone through dozens of Christmases and have been hunt through hundreds of services on a Sunday and sung the same songs over and over again that you become familiar and you forget the wonder of the moment.

And so David says, I want to dwell with you in your house.

He says to gaze on the beauty of the Lord.

Gazing is a different word.

Gazing is slow, gazing is intentional.

Gazing is receptive.

It's receiving, it's not producing.

I was early for our small group, our Connect group, this last Wednesday, and we meet at a coffee shop on a Wednesday later afternoon.

And so I got there early and I was preparing some of this message.

And I sat down, I was sitting uh on the bar, and these this couple was behind me who were dating.

You could tell it was their date.

It was so distracting because I knew I had work to do, but I was just thoroughly entertained by this date.

I could hear them talking, I could hear them connecting with each other, and I could watch the subtleties as they were flirting in their conversation, and the guys showboating a little bit about where he's been and what he's done.

And I could just say, I am provider, I take care of you.

And they spoke softly with each other.

She's looking at him, he's looking at her, and they're just gazing at one another.

And I just thought, oh my Lord, this is quite the comical environment to be in for me to see.

But the fact is, there was a moment of gazing, and David said, I would gaze upon your beauty like I would drink it up.

I need to be able to drink it up, and I can't go too quickly.

I can't rush this.

I gotta slow down, and in a moment in a season where we're we're so excited about this moment of wonder, the fact that God from heaven sent his son in flesh to earth.

What time and what season is this?

Probably the busiest season of all time, all year.

Where people are busy and rushing and and and and doing whatever they can to actually keep themselves like active.

And the same message came to the church in Revelation, where the church of Ephesus, they had done great things, and they were praised for their diligence, for their good work, all the things that they had been challenged and they had overcome challenges, and yet in the book of Revelation it says that there was something that was held against them and that they had lost their first love.

They had forgotten how to gaze on one another.

They had forgotten how to gaze on Christ.

They had forgotten their devotion to him and spent their energy in great service, but hadn't connected with their heart.

And he said, We've gotta we've gotta repent.

And this is a cultural issue because our world is built on that productivity and speed and efficiency.

But we have to consider what it's like to linger with God.

To slow down enough, to slow to slow to actually think about God and step back in that moment of wonder.

Wonder is a pursuit.

David said this that I might seek you in your temple.

Gazing is receptive, but seeking is active.

So there's two tensions here.

David's saying, I want to gaze on your beauty like I want to just receive from you, but then I want to seek you as well in your temple.

So I'm gonna push in, I'm gonna draw, I'm gonna, I'm gonna seek after you.

And so he seeks, he seeks after God.

And there's that that point where I I know where people are seeking after God, and where they seek after God, the Bible says, if you if you pursue me, if you come close, I'll come close to you.

Like God won't resist you or restrict himself from you.

And so he opens, God will open his heart up to you.

I I know so many times in the church where people have said, I'm gonna come to church, I'm gonna come for the first time, and they've come into the church service and they've taken that step, and God takes that step towards them.

And so many times I've heard people say, I couldn't stop crying from the first song that was sung.

And it's not our ability, it's the fact that God visits you.

God touch touches your heart and opens your life to that moment of wonder.

God's beauty is expressed through his holiness, his faithfulness to you, his mercy, his grace, and it beckons you to come deeper.

He doesn't just seek, David is not just seeking a thing, he's seeking a person, and that the spirit is relational.

He's saying, I want to know you.

The fact that the fact that the whole the universe, the galaxies, the cosmos is so wide and broad, like it's so expansive that our our mind has a tough time like understanding the expansiveness of it.

And then on this small planet is called the earth, is a person, and how many billion people are on this earth that God, out of all the cosmos, God thinks of me, and sent his son for me.

What a privilege, and says, I want not only am I going to send my son for you, I'm gonna fill you with my spirit so you can know me and connect to the creator of all creation, and my heart will become your heart, and my eyes will become your eyes, and my mouth will become your mouth.

You'll begin to speak the way I speak and connect the way I connect, and I'll choose you to be my ambassador in Christ.

So when you walk, you walk as a representative of me.

The wonder of that relationship.

Wonder breaks the cycle of familiarity.

David had priests, he had a temple, he had access to all the sacrifices and rituals and traditions, but yet he wanted more, and his prayer was one thing I ask, one thing I desire, that I might be in your house, dwell in your house, I might seek you and find you, and I would gaze upon your beauty, receiving from you.

The other day we were uh traveling and we were going through the Rockies, and uh I I probably get through Alberta a few times every year, uh, but this time I wasn't with kids, and I remember the last time I took my kids, I was saying, kids, kids, look at this.

Kids, look at that, look at that mountain, look at that.

And finally, my youngest just looked at me and he said, Dad, would you stop?

We've seen it.

It's a it's another mountain, it's another glacier, it's another, you know, rock face.

We've seen it.

But after a while, like I was there fresh, and I we were driving through Canmore, and you can see the three sister mountains and the three sisters, and then you keep going into Banff and you look around, you're just surrounded by this majestic, uh, majestic location.

And I was caught in a moment of wonder, and then I see people from Alberta license plates just ripping through, and they're so familiar with it that they don't think about it.

How many of you know what that's like?

As we live in the Okanagan, and don't see the wonder, we become familiar with it.

It's both attention in our walk with God, the wonder is given by God, but wonder is also pursued by us.

It's given by God to us, but it's also called for us to seek Him.

Wonder is an anchor to our life.

And I think about David, and this was something that was fairly new to me in my study this week, is that when David was pressured on all sides, where he resorted was to wonder.

He wanted to wonder.

He said there was chaos going on in different areas, but instead of getting caught in the chaos, he stopped and he said, Lord, I just need to gaze on you.

I need to gaze on you in this moment.

And what happens is when you gaze on God, you get clarity about what God's plan is and what God's direction is.

And when you gaze on God, he becomes that anchor to your soul, and things begin to change, and you know you have a firm foundation in him.

Psalm 103 says that he crowns us with beauty, he brings us out of the pit and puts us on a solid ground.

When we're when we get chaos in our mind about shame from our past, we remember that he's removed our sins from us as far as the east is from the west.

He's thrown him into a pit of forgetfulness.

God cares for each and every one of us.

He cares for our kids, he cares for our kids' kids, he's got plans for us, his intention for us is for good and not for evil.

He's giving us a future, a hope for our future, and a hope.

God's heartbeat for us is for good things.

So the challenge for us resonated through David was to taste and see that the Lord He is good.

He's good to all of us and behold his beauty, because there's nothing that can come between us when God is for us, who can be against us, and when no weapon formed against us can prosper when he's on our side, when God can create Yudi Scootie, or I've changed the name now, when he can produce Scooty and He can produce Scooty, produce these stars and produce this creation.

If God can do that with a flick of his finger, imagine what God can do for you in your life.

Take hope, take hope and get clarity on who it is we serve and who it is that we gaze on, because by gazing on him and filling our heart with wonder will set our feet on solid ground and allow us to pursue our future with faith and hope.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

Would you stand with me today?

We invite the worship team to make their way up today.

And let's just bow our heads for a moment here.

Father, we thank you today for your presence.

One of the markers of the first church was that they experienced awe and wonder.

And Father, today, we don't want to leave here without a greater revelation.

We don't need more information, we need more revelation of who you are.

Father, that the eyes of our understanding, the eyes of our heart would be enlightened, full of light, Lord, that we would walk not as those who see dimly, see, but we would see the grandeur.

We would know the King of Kings, the Lord of all lords, the King of Glory.

And Father, we are just saying, just begin, Lord, with a grateful heart.

It just moves me to gratitude today, Father.

It moves me to great gratitude, Lord, that you who can put the stars in the sky and set the stars in motion with your fingertips, Lord, who are we that you consider us?

How much more precious are we?

How much more how much more valuable are each of us that you would not just put creation at our at our perspective, but you would come to live with us in our heart, in our life, and we can come to know you.

Father, today we just are just I am overwhelmed with Lord that sense of wonder that Lord that there's nothing that can separate us from your love.

There's no place we can go where you can't, your arm isn't is so short that it can't reach out and grab us, Lord.

It is outstretched, it can wrap us up.

And Father, today, even as I'm praying, Father, there there's I'm just sensing there's like a heart for the prodigal today.

Father, for those who have gone astray, those who have gone far from you.

Father, there's no person who's gone so far that you can't wrap them up and bring them close.

Father, we pray, Lord, that during this season, that there would be such great wonder at our homes, at our tables, in our living rooms, Lord, in our travel, Lord, that people would come to know you fresh, that they would be brought close to you in Jesus' name.

That there would be great salvation, there would be great hardship change, there would be great shifts in the atmosphere and in the environment as we celebrate you in Jesus' name.

Hallelujah.

Hallelujah.

Thank you, Lord, for being so great.

Thank you, Lord, for for demonstrating how great you are, Lord, and speaking to us just simply from creation.

We give you thanks today, Father.

If you're here today with eyes continued to be closed and heads bowed, if you're here today and your heart is being moved into relationship, the Bible says that today is a day for salvation.

It's not tomorrow, it's not next week, but today is the day and that God brings you close by his love.

His love compels you to repent.

And you're just sensing today that you are loved and that you have been given great gifts and great grace and great mercy, and that God wants you close.

And if you're feeling that invitation, I just want to be able to pray a prayer with you and together as a church.

We're going to pray together.

But if that's you today, would you just raise your hand really high for me to see?

If there's anyone here today, that's that's for you.

Father, we just thank you.

We thank you for that saving grace.

Would you just pray this prayer along with me?

Father, I thank you for your son Jesus.

I accept today that I am a sinner and that I've gone in error by choosing my own path.

And today, I believe that you are the Son of God, and that you made a way for me, that if I repent, I will be saved and set cracked in my path.

And today, I confess you as my Lord, and I confess you as my Savior, and I welcome you into my heart and into my life.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

Would you give a round of applause for the Lord today?

Let's just close today with just this class.