Hope for All People

Go ahead and Luke chapter 2.

Luke 2 · chapter mention

We're gonna start in verse 6.

It says, While they were there, they being Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem, while they were there, the time came for her baby, that would be Jesus, to be born.

And she gave birth to her firstborn son, and she wrapped him snugly in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no lodging available for them.

That night there were shepherds staying in the in the fields nearby, guarding their flocks of sheep, and suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared among them, and the radiance of the Lord's glory surrounded them, and they were terrified.

But the angel reassured them, Don't be afraid, he said.

I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people.

I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people.

The Savior, yes, the Messiah, the Lord, has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David.

And you will recognize him by this sign, you will find a baby wrapped snugly in strips of cloth, lying in a manger.

Um, I I've been uh the last six to eight months, I've been in the book of Genesis uh in my personal reading, my personal time.

I've shared several messages with our church.

Some of you have been around for that.

I've been talking out of the book of Genesis, and I've kind of gone back to this, you know, foundational book.

It's the first book of the Bible.

Um, it's uh it's you know, some of these Old Testament documents and writings are some of the oldest writings we have anywhere.

And so um, as I've gone back to Genesis looking at some of these fundamental stories and foundational characters, I've been really trying to see some new things and and and even really trying to understand it better.

You know, you think about the fact that with these old writings, you have um you have these different genres, not only genres, but like literary styles that are, you know, that that are accurate to that date.

So think about in our world how easy it is to miscommunicate.

Okay, sometimes humor is lost, okay.

If you're just meeting someone and they you're not you can't tell if they're being serious or if they're joking, and they're standing right in front of you speaking English, right?

So like it's very easy to miscommunicate.

You miscommunicate via text message or emails.

Often you got to try to clear it up.

What do you mean by that?

We go back and forth.

Um, the fact that we're looking at things that were written, you know, thousands and thousands of years ago that were like our art and our world and our literature, our movies, they're impacted by culture.

They're impacted by other artists and other writers.

So you'll see, like even in if you're kind of a movie buff, right?

You see movies that um, you know, based on the era, they're influenced by other writers and other producers.

And so when you're looking at the Bible, you've got to understand the culture that's going on, not just like in the ancient Israel, but ancient Near East and what this these writings like what would have been hyperbole or might have been hyperbole.

Of course, we we're humble about our interpretations because you know, we don't get to dial up Moses and ask him what he really meant.

You know, we don't get to call, you know, Paul and say, Paul, come on, were you were you joking?

Were you serious?

Did you have a bad day?

What'd you mean by that?

Okay, so so when we do this, we're trying to do the best we can to understand the best we can, and that that's kind of what I've been doing.

I I've gone back and I'm looking at you know these people and and how complicated they are.

You know, in the um book of Genesis, we we do have quite a bit of narrative on several of the stories, you you get sort of details of things that happen, and pretty quickly you start to get uncomfortable with these characters because there's a lot of stuff in there.

Some of the Genesis, you know, is like rated R.

Like there's some of it that's not even really talked about in church.

Like if I start getting detailed about it.

In fact, some of you you start reading Genesis, you didn't know what to do with it.

You know, you're like, man, I'm gonna just, you know, what in the world does that mean?

And what's going on there?

There's a lot of it that's uncomfortable, but what you have are human beings.

And human beings, right, have flesh, and human beings interface with other human beings and often create complicated lives.

Or from the beginning, right?

Whether it's the first family, Adam and Eve, and their sons Cain and Abel, and and and and Cain, you know, uh kills Abel, and you you've got like Noah and his family, and of course, we know about the animals and like the two by two and the ark and the flood.

But then if you read after that, that family was messed up, man.

They did like they hurt one another pretty bad, okay?

There's a lot of this, and then you've got, you know, God is trying to do something for the whole world, but he's like, I'm gonna do it through a family, through a nation.

So he goes to Abraham.

He's like, Abraham, I'm gonna build a nation, a great nation through you.

But he's like, it's not really about you, it's not about you, it's not about your nation.

It's I love people, I love human beings, and I want to do something through all people.

So God uses Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, their whole families, of very flawed people.

Very flawed people.

And we've been looking at this.

I was listening to um uh a guy give a lecture on Genesis, and he was saying, he was talking about just how dysfunctional these families are and how bad, how many bad decisions, like horrible decisions some of these people made, and and yet God still used them, you know, and he's like he's like musing about it.

He's like, you know, um, why would God use such a messed up group of people, you know, to build is to build a nation or to create the foundation for for our faith and all this?

Why would he use this really jacked up group of people, you know?

And I'm sitting there and I'm listening to it and I'm thinking, why not?

Like, who else are you gonna use?

Like, we're all messed up.

Like, is it was it was it up to God to look and find the least dysfunctional people in the world and go, okay, that's who I'm gonna use?

Like, like the reality is like you read these stories, and like, I mean, I I didn't like I didn't grow up with a dad with four wives and 13 kids, right?

My life wasn't exactly that, but like when I look at the story of Jacob, I can definitely relate to Jacob in a lot of ways.

There's pieces of Esau that reminds me of myself.

There's issues between Leah and Rachel and Reuben and Joseph, and all of them I can go, man.

I if I look closely enough, like I get that, I get that temptation.

I've made similar decisions, okay?

I felt things in my heart, I've had similar confusion and questions.

Like, we're all complicated characters.

And really, a big part of the story arc of the Bible that starts all the way back with Adam and Eve is that God loves human beings.

And he understands human beings are gonna be human beings, and God wants to help human beings, and he gives grace.

In fact, you're gonna see as the nation becomes a nation, God keeps redeeming them, he keeps bringing them back, he'll make a covenant with them, and they'll break the covenant.

And sometimes when they break the covenant, you know how this goes.

Somebody starts down a path, they're infatuated with something, they're worshiping an idol, or they're infatuated with something that they shouldn't be infatuated with.

It's like God would let them go.

Like, go ahead.

And then you want that life, go ahead, you can have that life.

And then what would happen?

They would be under some kind of judgment, they would end up with a nation, would come and take over them, they would end up in pain.

When they were in pain, you know how what pain does, right?

Pain causes us sometimes to change.

When the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change, that's when you change.

So they would then cry out to God and go, you know, we don't want this life anymore.

And what would happen?

God would show up rich in mercy and redeem them.

And so the story of like 10,000 feet of the Old Testament is God keeps bringing them back.

He keeps bringing them back, he keeps redeeming them over and over and over again.

I think this is important because you know, we we put up, go ahead and put up the Jacobson family.

We've been talking about this in the series, the P The Pivot.

And we've been talking about this family with all of their complications.

And um, you know, I don't I won't re-preach the full messages, but you know, Jacob is part of, you know, the downline Abraham, Isaac, Jacob.

And and so he his story is he he's been he is insecure all his life.

He was born a fraternal twin, his dad preferred his brother.

Everything that was different about the twins, his dad preferred his brother, and so he felt like he needed to prove himself all the time.

And frankly, it never went away.

He lived to be an old man, and all of his life you see him constantly feeling like he needs to validate himself.

And of course, then he goes in and he takes a lot of his own baggage and ends up dumping it on his family.

He ends up with two wives, Leah and Rachel, who were sisters.

It's a long story, okay.

They end up hating one another.

There's a lot of pain there, and and then he ends up doing the things to his own kids that were done to him.

He prefers uh, you know, one son over his other sons, and now they all hate one another.

And it's like, keep handing down this dysfunction.

And yet, in the middle of all of this, okay, we we see that God uses even complicated people and complicated families.

When I look at this, I can relate to a lot of the people.

Like, again, there's there there's stuff about Leah.

Leah's not Leah's not one of these people that just woke up evil and was like proactively trying to hurt people.

You know, I mean, yeah, we all have you know dark things in our minds and hearts, but like, you know, there's some people that are like, no, I really am trying to be a good mom.

I really am.

You know, I'm trying to be a good dad.

I don't know what my score is, I don't know how good I'm doing.

I'm trying, though.

Like, I didn't wake up any day of my life thinking, you know what, I'm bloodthirsty.

I'm just gonna just eat people up, right?

I'm gonna chew them up and spit them out.

You know, I just want to wreak havoc.

No, I'm trying to be good.

I'm trying to do the best I can, but you have Leah who has this gnawing in her heart because all the way from her dad to her husband, she's never felt valid, but she's married to a guy who never felt valid.

I can relate, right?

I can relate.

You can probably relate.

You see somebody like Reuben, right, who's feeling hurt for his mom because of how his dad's treating her.

I I heard this guy recently, um, he was talking about the progression that sometimes we go through with our earthly fathers, our earthly parents, right?

He said, when you're little, when you're firstborn, you idolize your dad.

You idolize him.

Why?

Well, because he's like omnipotent.

You know, he's huge.

You're born and he's big, he's this big guy, and he's all powerful, and so he can provide stuff for you, and if he puts you in timeout, that's where you're gonna be.

And, you know, I mean, you just think he's big, and you tell people like, my dad could beat your dad up.

You know, I mean, just trust me, you know, my dad can beat up your dad.

When I was a kid, I remember one of my dad's friends was trying to gas my dad up, you know.

He said to me, he's like, hey, you know your dad's the man, right?

I'm like, yeah, no.

He goes, No, you don't understand.

Your dad knows everything.

I was like, what?

He's like, I think I was probably like six or seven.

He's like, your dad knows everything.

I was like, really?

He goes, oh yeah.

I go to my dad, I'm like, Dad, do you know everything?

He goes, heck yeah.

And I totally believed it, right?

For like a long time.

When you're little, you idolize, but over time you start to learn that the people that you love, like your parents, or people in authority, they're not they're per they're not perfect, they're humans.

And you see their flaws, and sometimes it takes time.

Like some of you experience traumatic things that like you you lost your innocence like that, but then others, like it's like in your 20s, 30s, 40s, you start to go, man, that stuff was messed up.

Like, I didn't even realize how deep that was.

So you go from idolize to villainize.

And if you keep going long enough and you keep living and you start to realize that sometimes you had good intentions and bad outcomes, and sometimes you you you got in the flesh and you were weaker, then you wanted to admit and stuff spilled out, then you start to realize you know what, they're a person just like me.

So you go from idolize to villainize to humanize.

And so this is what we talked about last week that how do I move on, how do I pivot and move on and let go of things is I have to humanize.

I have to humanize everyone.

I have to humanize all the people in my story, including myself.

And when I humanize myself and the people around me, then we have enough common ground.

I can't, I'm I can give grace.

I give grace, I can forgive.

I forgive, I can move on.

So here's what's interesting, right?

We have this story of God loving people since Genesis 1, people being people and creating complication, and God keeps redeeming them.

Now, fast forward in the story, right?

This is like, you know, around 2000 BC.

Goes all the way now to Jesus, okay, when Jesus is born.

Speaking of human eyes, what the Bible says of Jesus, okay, the one ultimately the Messiah who would give us grace.

Here's what it says about him.

Uh it says in Philippians 2, 5 through 8, he says, you must have the same attitude that Jesus had, Christ Jesus.

Though he was God, he did not consider equality with God something to cling to.

Instead, he gave up his divine privileges, he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being.

He was born as a human being.

He humanized himself.

And he related to all the limitations of flesh.

The fact that the flesh is easily tempted, the flesh can be deceived, the flesh is weak, the flesh is short-sighted, okay, the flesh can be impulsive.

He it says he experienced and felt all of that.

He got eye to eye with us and says, and then when he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal's death on the cross.

And this is why Hebrews 4.15 says, This high priest of ours understands our weaknesses.

Speaking of Jesus, this high priest of ours, Jesus, understands our weaknesses, for he faced all the same testings we do, yet he did not sin.

And so when you look actually in Matthew 1, that was what kind of leads up to Jesus, the story of Jesus' birth in Matthew, it gives the lineage of Jesus, right?

Most people don't even read it because it's just a whole bunch of names.

The reason it's in there is it's it's put in there to essentially verify, validate, right, Jesus and the line that he came through.

But what I love about that lineage is if you started to look into it and look in those names and stories, you would find as complicated a character as you and I.

As complicated a characters as they are in this room and in this world.

You would see people all over the social strata.

You you you see kings and you see both good kings and bad kings.

So David is mentioned in Jesus' lineage.

David's a complicated guy, made some bad choices, but was a good guy with a good heart.

The Bible says he was a man after God's own heart.

He was legendary in Israel as a great king.

So you have David.

Then you have a guy named sometime uh after that, Manasseh.

Manasseh was a horrible king, one of the worst kings in the nation of Israel, maybe the worst.

He became king at 12 years old.

That might have been part of why he was a bad king.

How many of you know?

You're 12, you should not have absolute power, okay?

12-year-olds shouldn't be kings.

Okay, write that in your notes, okay?

That's important to know.

Uh Manasseh becomes king at 12.

He rules for 55 years, and he gets caught up in some really wicked stuff, so much so he, the Bible says he burned his own children in fire to offer sacrifice to a false God.

He was a wicked, wicked king.

He's the type of guy, if he's in your lineage and you're making, you know, the family tree, you're like, you know, let's just, let's, I mean, we all know, but let's just, you know, let's not put him in there.

It's embarrassing.

He was really bad.

You know, then you see even named in Jesus' lineage, uh, Rahab, who's a prostitute.

So you see people all over the social strata, people who made horrible, terrible decisions, but that's human beings.

And if we sit in this room, like, yeah, we can sit here and compare how dysfunctional your family was to mine, and and and how much challenges you've had compared to how many challenges I've had, and we can sit here and do this, but the reality is we're all complicated people.

And sometimes we try to do good and we did bad, and sometimes we some sometimes we knew we were doing bad and we did it anyway.

And yet it's that world that Jesus is born into through his the entire lineage, which represents many, many people, and he shows up in the world, okay, and in and now we're in Luke 2.

Okay, so think about this now.

We we've we're so familiar with the nativity, we're so familiar with the Christmas story.

We hear shepherds, wise men, manger, okay, Bethlehem, the star.

It's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, we're the presence.

You know, okay, all right, all right, let's let's go, you know.

This is an incredible moment because you have Jesus' birth, Jesus is the Messiah, he's born, and the announcement, the first people to know are shepherds.

So, so God sends shepherds to tell, or sorry, sends angels to tell shepherds that Jesus has been born.

That God incarnate, the chosen one, has come to earth to do something great.

And he tells them first.

There's a couple interesting things about that.

The first is if you look at like the social stratification of the Greco-Roman world, this is a big time oversimplification.

If you want more complex charts, you can find them very easily.

But I'll just give you the basic top, you have the emperor, the emperor Caesar Augustus is mentioned in Luke 2, 1.

It would have been the top of the food chain.

Underneath that, okay, you have the Roman elite.

These are like senators, these are like wealthy uh people within the Roman Empire.

Underneath that, you have the provincial elite.

The provincial elite, okay, Rome's trying to take over the world, so they would take over a country or a region, and they would put um, you know, somebody, a Roman leader over top of those people.

Okay, so that's the next part.

And then underneath that you have Roman citizens, and then underneath that, you have all the people who are subject to Rome.

And then within those hierarchies, you have down the food chain people, you know, they're they had urban and rural areas just like we do.

You would have had uh, again, uh lower class people would have been shepherds, would have been considered lower class.

And so you have these people that are way down what society thinks is anybody important, and these are the people that God says, you know what, you're gonna be the first to know that this something great has happened.

And what did the angels say?

I bring you good news, I bring you good news of great joy for all people.

What's interesting about the fact that they the angels tell the shepherds first is that these are people that nobody put a lot of value on, but they're the ones that get the message first.

Like, think about this, you know this.

When you have really great news, what's the order in which you tell people?

Like, if you got in the college of your dreams, or you got a scholarship, or you got a big promotion, or you got engaged, or you found out you were having a baby, who do you tell?

You don't just go and tell everybody, you go tell people who are important to you.

You go tell the people you value highly, right?

Maybe it's your parents, maybe it's your siblings, maybe it's your best friend.

Like, listen, let me, I'll just tell you.

If somebody ever calls you with really great news to them, even if you don't care about it, but it's big news to them, and they say, You're the first person I'm telling.

They just told you how important you are.

They just made a massive statement.

I'm telling you first, this matters to me, it's a big deal, and I'm telling you first, they are making a statement of your value.

So when you look at the angels announcing to the shepherds first, it's a statement of value.

No matter where you fall on the social strata, no matter where you fall in the hall of good or bad decision making, this is good news.

It brings great joy to all people.

So, shepherds, it's not just for you, it's for the emperor too.

It's for the elite too, it's for people, whatever their job, whatever their socioeconomic situation, it's good news of great joy for all people.

But I want you to know that I value you.

And so I'm telling you first.

Giving the the shepherds the information first.

And so, what is what's the point of this, right?

The point of this is that from Genesis 1 until when even when Jesus shows up, Emmanuel, God with us, God meets people where they are.

I bring you good news, he says.

What is the good news?

The good news starts with the fact that since Genesis 1, God met people where they were.

I'm gonna meet you out in the field working third shift.

Shepherds?

I know that the society doesn't put a lot.

Of value on you when you walk in the room, okay, you they're not making a big deal out of you.

I know that you're not recognized or respected, okay, in this hierarchy, but I value you, I meet you where you are, and so the good news of great joy is that wherever you are, whether you're like Leah, Rachel, Jacob, Esau, whether you're Adam and Eve, all the way to Manasseh or David, whether you made decisions you hope nobody ever finds out about, you'll take them to your grave, you have things you still feel guilty about, you have things you're ashamed of, maybe you deal with a deep sense of shame because you're like, I feel like Leah, I feel like Jacob, who's always trying to prove wherever you fall in the decision-making spectrum, wherever you fall in the moral spectrum, wherever you fall in the social strata, he meets you where you are.

God's been meeting people where they are since day one.

And when he sends Jesus, he sends God in human form, incarnate, to take away the mystery about what's God really like.

He is Emmanuel, which means God with us, which means he meets us where we are.

The great thing about Jesus, you keep reading the story, right?

This Christmas isn't a birthday party for a baby, essentially, right?

We're celebrating the birth of Jesus because of what Jesus did and what all that means.

So when you read on, right, and you look on at what Jesus did, from the moment that Emmanuel showed up in earth meeting the shepherds where they are, meeting everyone where they are, Jesus kept doing that.

So everywhere he went, he would meet people where they were.

He would meet them whether it was in the temple or on the street or in their home, or he would up in a tree.

He would meet them where they are.

So he meets you where you are, but then when he would meet people where they were, he would say, Now follow me.

So the good news is that he meets you where you are, but he doesn't leave you where you're at.

He invites you to follow him.

Follow him where?

Well, if you're broken, follow him to healing.

If you're lost, follow him to purpose.

If you're confused, follow him to answers and clarity.

He said, I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life.

Follow him where he wants you to go to that life of purpose.

I I'll leave the 99 to get to the one, but I'm not gonna just sit there with the one while the one stays stuck.

I'm bringing you home.

I'm bringing you home, I'm bringing you out.

So the good news that brings great joy is this God loves human beings.

He's loved them since he created them.

He created them, we're complex, wonderfully complex, sometimes confusing to ourselves.

Sometimes we're trying to figure out where we are, why we did what we did.

I've said this before in the church, but often I'll talk to people who made the worst decisions of their life.

I'm like, why'd you do that?

And they're like, I don't know.

Like, they're not evading the question, they really don't know.

I'm confused, like, how I got here.

So we have the good news is God loves people, he understands your complexity, he took on flesh, came in the same position you've been in, and knows what it's like to be where you are.

Meets you where you are, but doesn't leave you there.

Jesus knows what it's like to be stabbed in the back by somebody you care about.

He knows what it's like to be disrespected, to be disregarded, to be abused, okay, to be looked over, to be mistreated, to be mistreated by people who don't know you and are assuming things about you, and to be disappointed by people who you fully expected to go the distance with you.

He understands every part of that.

Every way you've been tempted, every pain you felt, he's felt.

Yet without sin.

So he meets you where you are but doesn't leave you where you're at.

He says, Come follow me.

Come follow me.

That's good news that brings great joy to all people, and that all people include you and me.

I'll tell you this last thing.

Uh a few weeks ago, uh one of our staff members calls me.

They say, Hey, uh, Pastor, the local police chief called the church and asked for your phone number.

Should we give it to him?

I was like, Yeah, I give it to him.

Like, I'm not a hard guy to find.

I'm in the same place every Sunday at 9 a.m., you know?

It's like, give him a number, you know.

And I've got really curious.

I'm like, what does the police chief want with me?

You know, I'm thinking, you know, I have been jaywalking a lot lately, you know.

Rolled through a few stop signs, you know, and I went and checked my tags.

I'm like, maybe I forgot my, you know, he's on to me, you know, and and um he didn't call for like a week.

I'm freaking out.

I'm like, you know, uh give me his number, you know.

I'll go on.

Um but eventually he calls me, he says, hey, um, we're trying to do something, and I want to keep just we just want to keep improving our law enforcement, and and so one of the things we want to do is is uh help our local law enforcement with mental health, that they're in the healthiest possible head spaces, they're doing an important job, and they're like, we need a facility to facilitate an event that we're gonna do to try to help help out, and um, can we use the church?

I'm like, yeah, absolutely.

You know, so we met up and just had a little bit of time with them, and and anytime God puts someone in front of me, you know, I understand that God's given me a honor of a responsibility to serve a diverse group of people.

And a lot of you guys, you go and do things in your jobs and things I don't I don't know about, or I don't, I'm not there.

So whenever I kind of have somebody I try to learn and see life through their lens, I'm like, tell me about your, you know, tell me about what you're doing right now, what's it like?

And he was talking.

So I asked him this question, I said, hey man, what's your biggest challenge right now you guys are seeing?

What's your biggest challenge?

And honestly, I thought he was gonna say, like, a specific crime, you know, we've got a lot of breaking and entering, or you know, we're seeing a lot of this particular drug, you know, is on the rise, or whatever.

Like, I was expecting a specific crime.

And I asked him, what's your biggest challenge?

And without hesitation, he didn't even flinch.

He goes, hopelessness.

Hopelessness.

I was like, it surprised me.

I didn't expect that answer.

I was like, what do you mean?

He goes, Oh man, it's hopelessness.

He goes, every crime, every person commits a crime, you can track you can track it back almost every time.

You can track it back to people who have lost hope.

He's like, man, we see it every day.

He goes, people that lose hope, man, they'll they'll hurt people.

People that lose hope will do anything to themselves, they'll harm themselves, they'll take crazy impulsive risks.

If they don't have anything to live for, they don't have anything to lose.

If they've lost hope, they'll do reckless, horrific things they would never do if they had hope.

He said, if I could do one thing, I would just give out hope.

If I could give out hope, he goes, it would solve most of the issues.

I thought, man, I step back.

I thought, Lord, help us.

Help us, help us.

But Lord, we have the hope, we have the thrill of hope.

I bring you good news of great joy for all people.

The good news of great joy applies to third shift shepherds, people that nobody thought much of.

Wherever you fall in the social strata, no matter how much respect people are giving you or not giving you, no matter if they're seeing you and honoring you and holding you up or they're devaluing you and ignoring you, I bring you good news of great joy for all people.

Whatever you lost this year, I bring you good news of great joy for all people.

No matter the mistakes that you made this year that you can't go back and undo, he's a God that's been bringing people back and redeeming and bringing new opportunity and bringing new life.

Anyone who's in Christ is a new creation.

Emmanuel, God with us, he meets you where you are.

He meets you where you are, but he doesn't leave you where you're at.

He invites you to follow him.

So matter who you are today, what kind of year it's been, I know just because it's Christmas, problems don't just disappear.

I know just because a new calendar year hits doesn't mean that last year is gone.

You you gotta put some things behind you, but at the end of the day, we're working our way through.

He meets you where you are.

Whatever season you're in, he meets you there.

But he doesn't leave you where you're at, he invites you to follow him.

That's good news that brings great joy for all people.

And all people include you, it includes me.

So let's take a moment in this holiday to step back and to allow God to maybe reignite a hope inside of our hearts.

Let's pray together.

Lord, we come to you in Jesus' name.

We thank you, Lord, for the power of your word.

Lord, as we look at this story that's quite familiar of the birth of Jesus, Lord, we uh take a moment to focus on the aspect of the great news being broken to the shepherds.

People that other people looked past, people that weren't considered people of value, and yet you told them first.

Just like we would dial up somebody with the best news we had, somebody who we really valued.

And Lord, that statement wasn't just about sheep herders, Lord.

That that statement is about all people.

It's about people that fall all over the social strata, people that follow all fall all over the decision-making spectrum.

Here we are.

You meet us here.

We thank you for that.

And so, Lord, that good news brings great joy to our heart.

Lord, I pray for that one today who's here, who doesn't like where they are.

I pray, Lord, even as we sing and we worship you in these next moments, God, that they would sense you meeting them where they are and inviting them to follow you.

In Jesus' name.

Everybody said amen.