The Antidote for Loneliness

Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast.

We pray this message encourages you and provides the hope and light of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for tuning in.

All right, you can grab your seat.

Great to be with you this morning.

As you can tell, we're doing something a little different.

This is our final Sunday of the year, and uh it's such a joy to get to lead worship with my kids.

They're back in town.

Just got back from France and Ryder from San Diego.

Thanks for being here, guys.

Yeah, super fun.

And then uh we're in the middle of the series presence, God's antidote for hurry, anxiety, and loneliness.

Today we're talking on loneliness.

I asked Ashley to team teach this with me.

Will you welcome Ashley?

Um not really um and uh part of this is I'm just so grateful that you're a part of this because not only did I not want to um teach on loneliness all by myself, um, but what we're teaching today and where we're going, you live out in such a like really beautiful and practical way.

So thanks again.

Yeah, I'm really looking forward to you.

Glad to be here.

And something we're doing this morning is our prayer and our hope is you would have a just really profoundly personal and powerful moment with your Heavenly Father today.

And to do that, we've structured our service a little bit different.

Um, instead of worship, teaching, worship, goodbye, we're doing a little bit of a worship teaching weave.

So we'll have different movements throughout uh our morning together uh as we unpack this.

Uh sound good?

All right, thank you.

Uh well, it may not, and that's okay.

We can we can have honesty here.

Um isn't it striking in our day and age that we can be in a crowd, you can be in a room like this and yet feel so alone.

Surrounded by people, yet feel invisible, unknown.

Be sitting at a table with loved ones and yet feel deeply disconnected.

You can be chasing after a toddler all day long only to put your head on the pill and just feel this sense of loneliness.

Question that begins to race through our minds is why do I feel so alone?

Why do I feel so alone, especially in such a socially connected world?

And underneath that question, we begin to wrestle with like, is something wrong with me?

Is something broken in me?

Because when I look out, it seems like everybody else has it all together.

You've heard this, you know this.

We live in an age and day where our experts say our culture, our society is experiencing a loneliness epidemic.

Uh, 50% of adults say they feel lonely frequently or almost all of the time in America.

Nearly one-third of Americans say they seldom or never feel understood by others.

Among young adults, loneliness rates have nearly tripled compared to 30 years ago.

At Awakening, we do a survey of our church, and 25% of you said loneliness is a significant struggle right now.

And that's the paradox of our time, isn't it?

The paradox is we are in the most connected generation in history, and yet we are the most relationally disconnected.

Access and information to people all the time, and yet we are experiencing deep and profound loneliness.

Uh we experiencing it for a few reasons.

One, we today confuse intimacy for intimacy, don't we?

Uh or information rather for intimacy.

We confuse intimacy for intimacy.

Do you get it?

No, we confuse information.

We have so much information about people, don't we?

More than you care to at times.

Like, I know where you traveled, which is awesome.

I also know what you had for dinner, which is, yeah, thank you.

Um, I guess.

But relationally, we're spending far less time with people.

In fact, interestingly enough, the top 25% of social media use, those who use social media, are more than twice as likely to report feeling lonely as those in the lowest group.

As our connection online goes up, our experience of loneliness increases as well.

Not only do we confuse information for intimacy, but we also trade presence for preoccupation.

Even when we're with people, we're not really present with them.

We're more distracted than ever.

The next time that you go out to eat, look around.

Notice how many people came to a restaurant to spend time with somebody else and they're looking at their phone instead.

At home, screens fill our time together all while we sit right next to each other.

Research shows that even having your phone on the table, face down, on silent, it reduces attention and connection.

Why?

Because your brain is working to not think about your phone, and that effort pulls attention from the person right in front of you.

And here's what's happening as a result.

You know, we know it.

We experienced this.

We replace being known today with being seen.

Our greatest desire, deep longing of our soul is to be fully known, fully rejected, and fully loved.

Our biggest fear is to be fully known and rejected.

And we've created a world in which we curate, we cut and paste and hide and present just the best version of ourselves because we're afraid if anybody saw the real us, they wouldn't like us.

They wouldn't love us, they wouldn't want to be around us.

At Christmas time, we celebrate this incredible reality, the greatest event of human history, Emmanuel, God with us, God stepping into our mess.

The incredible reality, think about this.

The God of the universe who knows you fully and completely, knows even the things that you wish and hope nobody else would ever know about you.

He knows it, he sees it, and he isn't repulsed by it or moved away.

In fact, he moves towards us, he moves towards you in love.

What I want to say in our time together is if you're feeling lonely, if you're feeling like you're in a place where you walked in discouraged, hurting, just feeling that sense of like, gosh man, I'm just trying to get through this season.

I believe God wants to meet with you both really personally and profoundly.

Something that we've been doing this entire time, this series, is we've been lighting a candle to remind us of the presence of Christ.

This is a practice the church has been doing.

That he is the light of the world, that he is with us.

And so before we continue on, can we just take a moment to settle ourselves?

To take a breath, to invite the Holy Spirit to meet with us in a new, in a fresh way.

Go ahead, take a deep breath.

Close your eyes if you want to do this.

And the longing of your soul, my soul.

We've said this for the last couple weeks.

It's found in eight profound words.

Psalm 46, 10 says it this way Be still and know that I'm God.

Would you say that with me?

Be still and know that I'm God.

We we said it this way: that we must learn to be present to the presence of God in the present.

We're losing our ability through distraction to being present.

We must learn.

It's something we have to develop to be present to the presence of God, God who's already with us in the present.

And this begs the question.

We've been going through this, you know, be still.

This addresses the area of hurry and no, and we talked last week in Psalm 121, addresses the area of anxiety.

I am God.

Who is the God who draws near to us?

What kind of God is the God who draws near to us?

I want to take you to Psalm 68.

In Psalm 68, we see this picture of the kind of God that draws near to us.

In it, he says that God is a father to the fatherless and he sets the lonely in families.

I love that.

He's a father to the fatherless and he sets the lonely in families.

One encouraging thing is loneliness isn't a modern problem, it's simply a human problem.

The question is something wrong with me?

No, you're human.

But God wants to meet you in it.

Jesus' primary picture of God when he wanted to explain God clearly was Heavenly Father, our Father who art in heaven.

When we hear the word father, we all have a different picture that comes to mind, likely from our personal relationship or non-relationship from a father in our own lives.

Some of us have a wonderful relationship with our father.

You might have had a dad who is supportive and loving and invested in your life.

And some of us have the opposite.

You might have grown up with a dad who is angry or abusive or absent.

I really understand both of these.

I actually grew up with two pictures of what a father could be.

One was my stepdad.

He married my mom when I was four years old, and he fully embraced me as his daughter.

He's always shown up for me, cared about my life, and he has loved me in every season.

My other picture of a father was my biological dad.

And while being cautious to not tear someone down publicly, I will share that he was quite the opposite of my stepdad, the other end of the spectrum, you might say.

Those of you in the room who resonated with the words absent or abusive or angry, you and I may react to this idea of God the Father similarly.

When you have had a father who didn't show up lovingly for you, it can be difficult to relate to God as your father.

Maybe you resonate with one of those pictures of a dad, or maybe yours is somewhere else on that spectrum.

Here's the thing both the good and not so good examples of a father ultimately fall short.

Even the best father in the world falls short because he's human.

Dads in this room, this feels true, right?

I know many of you in here, and you're amazing dads to your kids.

My husband is one of them.

He's an incredible dad to our kids.

And he would tell you that no matter how hard he tries, he still falls short.

Now, that's not a knock on him, but it's the reality of being human.

We don't get it right all the time.

So if God is our father, this leads us to the question: what kind of father is he?

Many of the writers in scripture describe God's character in the same way.

They say the Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in faithful love.

Compassionate, he's deeply moved by suffering and pain to respond with care.

God gives us the gift of himself, his life, and his love.

He's slow to anger.

He's patient and he gives people lots of time to change.

And he's abounding in faithful love.

This is a combination of love and generosity and enduring commitment.

It's loyalty motivated by deep personal care.

Maybe some of these words describe our earthly fathers as well.

Maybe your dad is compassionate.

Maybe he's gracious.

Maybe he's so patient and slow to anger.

Maybe his love really does feel unconditional, like nothing you could do would stop him from loving you.

Dads who hold these characteristics are all beautiful pictures of what God the Father is like.

By experiencing a dad that shows up in these ways, we catch a glimpse of the goodness of God.

But even the best dads will eventually be tired or hungry or sick or stressed, and they'll wane in some of these qualities.

However, God is unchanging.

And he is abounding in faithful love always.

While our earthly fathers who are angry or abusive or ad absent, they fall short of both the presence and love that we need from a dad.

And while those earthly fathers who are a beautiful picture of God's love and care for us are still limited in how they can show up simply because they're human, God is a perfect father.

He isn't like our earthly fathers because he shows up in every single one of these ways, every single time.

Because that's who he is.

So we're gonna go back into worship now.

And there's an invitation here.

If you're someone who struggles with this idea of God as father, I'm not gonna ask you to pretend like you don't.

I'm not gonna ask you to pretend that this isn't a painful idea, but here's what I want you to hear.

God, as a perfect heavenly father, will show up for you.

He is compassionate.

He's gracious.

What he gives is himself because of his deep love for you.

He's slow to anger.

If you lived in fear of a dad who was quick to anger, this idea can feel so foreign and unsettling and maybe even too good to be true.

Like, when is this gonna come back at me?

But God is so very patient.

And he's abounding in faithful love.

He's committed to showing up for you and caring for you and won't ever waver in that commitment.

So as you're in this time of worship, if that's you, would you bring all of those feelings that you're experiencing to God in prayer?

God, I'm afraid to trust that you really are slow to anger.

God, I'm sad that I can't see you as my father because my dad was really that terrible.

God, I'm angry that I have a dad who isn't a good picture of you.

God, as our perfect heavenly Father, knows how to hold all of that.

He cares about you and He can handle the pain.

He will be moved by compassion because of his love for you.

And for those in this room who this is less complicated, because your picture of a dad was more positive and trustworthy.

As we worship, make this personal.

Jesus prayed, our Father, but he often spoke of my father.

This relationship between God the Father and you is incredibly personal.

Who you are approaching is your own father.

So this morning, this is your reminder to step into that personal moment with God your Father.

God loves you, he cares for you, and he's with you.

So would you meet with him this morning as we sing together of his goodness and love?

Stand with us as we worship.

Okay, this is running me, she's running up to me.

Oh my god, bits.

Be on the shadow.

What should I give from his free?

What should I gave from his dream?

What should I gave from his dream?

I can give it.

But it's an old man.

Would you just take a moment and just cry out to your heavenly father right now.

Father, who's never had a bad day.

You've never bothered your heavenly father.

You've never interrupted him.

He's never been too busy for you.

Like you've never gotten on his nerves.

In fact, when he hears your voice, it's music to him.

He delights over you with singing.

You're the object of his affection.

No good thing will he withhold.

He loves you.

He loves you.

He loves you.

And wherever you're at, would you just call out to him?

Cry out, Heavenly Father.

I long to know you in a more personal way.

I long to know you as my Father.

I long to meet with you.

I long to experience your presence in such a personal way.

Heavenly Father, we thank you that we were your kids.

In Jesus' name.

This relationship is one of the antidotes for loneliness.

Being loved by a good father who always shows up for us.

And having God as your father means that you are part of a greater family.

Taking us back to Psalm 68, God is a father to the fatherless, and he sets the lonely in families.

When my kids were much tinier than they are now, my daughter asked me if she could have another sibling.

But her one request was that she wanted a sibling that she didn't have to share with her brother, one that was just hers.

I had to break the very sad news to her that that's just not how siblings work.

When you have the same parents, you share all of your siblings with your other siblings.

My daughter just doesn't just have an isolated relationship with me as her parent.

We have this personal relationship, and also our relationship means that she also has a relationship with her brother because they have me, their parents, in common.

This parent-child relationship that we have with God, that He is our father, brings us into a whole family of siblings who all have a relationship with their father.

God sets the lonely in family.

Our family has really found this in our friendships.

It's common in Filipino culture, which my husband is, so I'm married into, to have your kids refer to your close friends as Tita and Tito.

This means aunt and uncle.

The family is extended past just biological relationships.

We have friends who we have decided are part of our family.

My kids know them as Tita and Tito.

They have a key to our house, they're part of our holiday celebrations.

I've received this beloved name of Tita from friends who consider me a sister to them and an auntie to their kids.

This is the way that our family does life within the family of God.

I got a little picture of how ingrained this is in my kids yesterday when my little guy, he was looking at all the Christmas cards that have been mailed to us that we tape up on the wall, and he looked really troubled.

And then he said, Where's the picture from Tito?

And I said, Well, we haven't gotten a card from them.

And that wasn't sufficient for him.

He said, Well, we need a card from them because he's part of our big family.

And I said, Yeah, but let's call him and tell him that.

Being part of God's family means now our family is extended.

Our family includes all believers, everyone who has been adopted as a child of God.

This adoption has come by the way of Jesus.

In Jesus, you have a new family.

We read in Galatians 4, but when the set time had fully come, God sent his son, born of a woman, that we might receive adoption to sonship.

So you are no longer a slave, but God's child.

The Son of God, Jesus, he came.

That's what this advent season has been leading up to.

That's what we're gonna celebrate on Wednesday on Christmas Eve.

That God's Son came.

He came to redeem us and to pave the way for us to be adopted into the family of God.

God sets us in his family.

We get to have him as our perfect heavenly father, and we get to be a part of the greater family of God, which means that in Jesus, you have lots of sisters and brothers.

The person you're sitting next to right now is your brother or your sister in Christ.

Even if you forgot their name since the meet and greet, don't worry.

The family of God goes deeper than just these acquaintances that you might see at church or talk to in that two-minute meet and greet.

Maybe the only thing that you know about them right now is what their least favorite Christmas song is.

But in Jesus, they are your sister or your brother, and you are their sister or their brother.

A common greeting in my larger family that I described is calling each other sister and brother.

When my best friend sees my husband, she greets him by saying, Hi, brother, and he says, Hey, sister, because it's true.

Not just in this cute chosen family situation, but because in Jesus they really are sister and brother.

So to make this a little more real right now, in this room, turn to four people next to you and greet them again with these relational titles, saying, Hey sister, hey brother, turn to them.

Oh, that was great.

Um Jesus, you have lots of brothers and sisters, sisters and brothers.

And the reality is, is that's the beauty and the challenge, isn't it?

True.

The beauty and the challenge is you have a new family.

The beauty, every follower of Jesus is a family member.

Like you didn't earn it, you didn't work for it, you're in.

You're already in.

And the coolest thing is you can be in a different country and be with family.

I we got to visit my daughter in France, and we got to go to her church, and it was like really precious of getting to be with other believers.

It's a different culture, a different language, and yet we all have the same God, the same Father, the same Spirit, worshiping Jesus.

We're all saved by grace, and we're all part of this big, beautiful, incredible family of God.

It's beautiful because some of you have, you know, moved here and you got to experience that.

You didn't know a soul, and then you stepped into this community and you experience a family of a group, a small group, and friends and new friends coming alongside you to pray for you, to encourage you, to strengthen you, to support you.

Like there's just this incredible reality.

And yet at the same time, the challenge, the challenge is every follower of Jesus is a family member, whether you want them or not, whether you like it or not.

I want to give us a little challenge for our church, it's probably for the church in America.

But I think we need to address the casualness and the consumer mindset in our approach to church.

It's antithetical to the family of God.

We have lost our commitment to one another, and we're more in favor of what's convenient for ourselves.

I mean, is this sermon feeding me?

Is this community serving me?

Do I like the music, the style?

Um, why are they so Swedish this weekend?

I don't know.

Is there something better down the road?

The early church, by the way, didn't have options.

They had a house church filled with people, one filled with messy people, immature people, annoying people, people who voted differently.

They didn't get a vote, by the way.

People who sinned differently, people who hurt each other and had to figure out how to forgive and what it actually meant.

When you were baptized, you were immersed in a new communal identity of the family of God.

Which it means spiritual growth doesn't happen in isolation.

Your spiritual growth cannot happen like all by yourself.

That's more popular today than ever.

It's all about me and I can do my thing.

It happens with friction, it happens through forgiveness, it happens through learning how to stay when it'd be easier to leave.

Your spiritual maturity is often limited by your level of commitment to the family of God.

Let me say that again.

Your spiritual maturity is often limited by your commitment to the family of God.

Listen to what the Apostle Paul said in the Colossians.

This is a church in Colossae.

He's writing this to them because they need to hear this.

The letters in the New Testament aren't because all the churches were this hunky-dory, amazing, perfect.

He writes letters because there's things that needed to be addressed, encouragement and correction.

He says, therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, that's who you are.

You're chosen, you're wholly set apart, you're dearly loved.

Clothe yourself, put this on.

Clothe yourself with compassion, with kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.

And he says this bear with one another.

Why?

Because sometimes people are a bear to be with, right?

Like bear with one another and forgive one another if you have any grievances to give.

How are we to forgive?

Forgive as the Lord has forgiven you.

And over all these virtues, put on love which binds them together in perfect community.

Notice what Paul assumes about community, about the family of God.

Paul assumes there will be grievances.

Paul assumes there will be friction.

That people will be in your life and in this family that you'll need to bear with.

That's not a failure.

That's family.

Welcome to the family.

And that's why communion is so very important.

It's what the Churely Church and we do regularly when they commit together.

Because communion reminds us that we didn't belong to this family because we agree on everything.

We belong to this family because of what Jesus accomplished on the cross and making us a new family through his sacrifice.

It reminds us of our desperate need for God's mercy and grace.

Which, when we are freshly reminded of our need for mercy and grace, we tend to give others mercy and grace.

Today we're going to take communion together, as one body, as one family.

Often the way we do this is uh if you've been around, you're familiar, we play music, you come forward, you take the bread, dip it in the cup, and you go back personally.

Today we have these really fancy cups on your yeah, it's cool, right?

Um we're gonna do this all together.

I want to give you a little coaching though.

Flip it upside down because the wafer's on the bottom, the cracker.

And you can even pre-get it ready and open it with the cracker side of it.

We're gonna sing Jesus Paid It All, and in the middle of the song, I'm gonna just pause for us to do this and partake in the Lord's Supper together.

Today we're gonna take communion as a family.

Let me ask you this.

How can I not forgive you?

Is there bitterness, is their anger, is there frustration, is their contempt, is there is their hurt and pain from the relationship?

Is there things that you carried in that you need to draw off and cross you go ahead and just begin to play and I want to invite you to just take time with Change the leather's name is hardest.

Jesus paid it all in all to get my sin I left the crimson stain.

He was before the throne and complete Jesus died, my soul to say my lips shall still be.

This is his body broken for you for the forgiveness of your sins, the healing of your brokenness.

Take and eat.

Take the cup of the cup of the new covenant.

Jesus' blood poured out for you to rescue you from the kingdom of darkness and bring you into the family of God.

Do this in remembrance of God.

Take care.

You stand with us as we worship, as we praise the one, that we just declare it out.

Just our heart's gratitude that God says the lonely in family, He is our Heavenly Father, made possible by the finished work of Jesus.

Here it was in it left.

Thank you, Jesus.

You deserve the Lord.

Mighty God, wonderful counselor, everlasting Father, the Prince of Jesus come for us.

God has adopted you into his family and placed you among many, many siblings.

But for all this, to truly combat the loneliness that you feel, either occasionally or often, you need to be known by the people around you.

And this requires something of you, of us.

It requires you to take a step toward being known.

This morning, we have two ways for you to do that.

The first is if you're new to awakening, or not new and just don't know anyone yet, or you know people, but you're still feeling lonely in this community.

This card that's somewhere around you is for you.

Take it out.

Everybody take it out so that we don't feel lonely.

Everybody take it out.

By filling out this card and taking it right outside to that white tent that we have.

You are taking a step toward being known by sisters and brothers in this church family.

The people who will be out at that white tent, they want to meet you, they want to get to know you, and they want you to help you find your people here.

Now, the second way that you can take a step toward being known is by serving.

I understand that might sound cringy, like I'm just trying to get you to fulfill a need that the church has, but hear me out.

Every one of my best friendships, every single one, I did like a tally this weekend.

Everyone has come out of serving together.

I met Missy while being junior high small group leaders together.

We spent our Thursday nights eating snacks and playing games with sixth graders, and we formed this deep friendship that has lasted over a decade past our time on that team.

I became friends with Megan Looper.

She's here this morning.

Well, she was playing drums on the worship team at a winter camp that I was leading.

We were in college at the time, so we started having weekly homework hangs that then turned into movie nights, that eventually turned into us being a part of each other's weddings.

And now we meet weekly in a small group.

I even met my husband through serving.

And our relationship grew as we served in the church together.

On Wednesday is Christmas Eve, and to make it a welcoming and beautiful space to celebrate the coming of Jesus and to help people feel like they're actually a part of the family of God.

Come serve with us.

The commitment is small, it's one time.

There are roles to greet people as they walk in and to prepare the hot cocoa bar and then to clean it all up after.

And as you serve, you have the opportunity to get to know and be known by the people who you're serving alongside.

If that's something you want to be a part of, I'm going to show you exactly how to do it.

In this bulletin that you probably have, that very first QR code is going to take you to all the times and opportunities that we have for you to come and serve and get to know and be known by the people who you're serving with.

So good.

Because we can take, know that we're placed into the family God, but we have to take a step to being known.

The second thing, this is incredible, is invite somebody into the family of God.

Would you invite someone into the family of God?

I was reminded of the power of invitation like a month ago.

My buddy Brian and I, we get to work out together five days a week.

It's super fun.

He's amazing.

He's like super strong.

I'm not, so I like to be around people that are.

I'm like, oh wow, I can one day he's my hero.

I want to be like him, right?

Um and one of our good buddies, we haven't seen in a long while.

He's big into fitness, and we're like, hey, would you want to come work out with us?

And he's like, oh yeah, sure.

So he came over on a Friday morning, worked out, and he's he puts both of us, I don't know why.

He's like, he's like a Greek god, I think.

I mean, like, he is that.

He's like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm just I'm gonna go hide in the corner.

Um we have this great time together, and at the end of it, he said this to us he's like, thank you so much for inviting me.

And he did something that we men especially struggle with.

It was courageous vulnerability.

And he and he said, you know, I've just been really lonely.

I mean, I I would have no idea.

He's super successful, has a beautiful, amazing family.

His Instagram game is awesome.

I look at what he's doing, I'm like, wow, that's cool.

And yet underneath all of that was loneliness.

And it was an invitation in.

One of the amazing things that we get to be a part of is not just placing in the family of God, we get to invite others into the family of God.

But Paul would say it this way that he's given us the ministry of reconciliation.

We get to help people experience a reconciled relationship with their heavenly father.

And chances are you're at awakening or you came to know Jesus because someone invited you.

And I want to ask you, this Christmas Eve happening in three days, would you invite somebody to Christmas Eve at awakening?

Maybe it's a coworker, maybe it's a friend, maybe it's a classmate, maybe it's a family member, maybe it's just somebody you haven't seen in a really long time.

Like, hey, they used to be around, but they're not.

And you're going like, maybe they're just great, but honestly, they just might be lonely.

And they need a fresh invitation.

Now, invite them to Christmas Eve, but don't invite them to next Sunday.

There's no church next Sunday.

No church.

This is our last church service of 2025.

Can you believe it?

Yeah.

Where it's crazy.

All right.

So invite them into the family of God.

What was the final one?

Yeah.

Sunday mornings are great for gathering with this whole church community, but coming and going on a Sunday morning and having that be your only interaction with the family of God each week isn't enough to combat this loneliness that we experience.

We want to invite you and challenge you to join or continue in a group or a study in the new year.

This is where deep relationships grow.

As you study the Bible and pray together, what this morning is an idea of brothers and sisters starts to turn into your reality.

When you meet together and you have a common commitment to each other, when you know what's going on in their lives and they know what's going on in yours, when you send that text between group meetings to ask how their exam went or if they're feeling better after being sick, these are the things that are the antidote to loneliness as you take an active role in the family that God has placed you in.

We have many options for you of what type of group or what type of study and when they happen.

Now, I understand this commitment is a big one.

The small group that I'm in, it meet we meet every week, and sometimes it feels like a big burden when I'm exhausted from a really full week.

I see one of my group members smiling at me for saying that.

But every time that we meet, every time, I'm reminded of how vital this group is in my life and in theirs.

We've walked through great celebration and great suffering together.

We've prayed for each other in each season, and as we've been committed to studying the Bible together, our relationships have grown, and the loneliness that each of us feel starts to dissipate.

If you do one new thing in this new year, make it this.

Join a group or a study and see how God really uses it as an antidote to loneliness.

Absolutely.

And my wife started a women's study in January.

Yeah, amazing.

As we conclude our time, for some, you know, God brought up some stuff and even met you, and you need to not rush past this moment.

Our prayer team is actually in the back.

And we'd love to pray with you and for you.

Uh whether it's going through something significant, something that God spoke to you in this moment, or even if it's just a celebration, that you have something that you go, oh, God's doing something really amazing, and I need somebody to share it with.

We'd love to be that with you.

Hey, would you stand on up with me as we close?

One of the things we want to do well is celebrate well as a family.

And we said that this Del Mar Giving Fund, we had a hope and dream to raise uh$35,000.

We actually raised$44,000.

Way to go.

Way to go.

That's amazing.

Great job.

Um and uh thank you for that.

And just a reminder for those of you who give at awakening and want to be a part uh significantly as we end this year and next year.

If you want to partner with us in year-and-giving, uh, that would be incredible in fueling the mission here of awakening this generation to new life in Jesus.

Uh, a couple things before we go.

One, uh, today is my wife and I's anniversary, 23rd, 23 years.

Super fun.

Uh another is Ashley, thanks so much.

That was great.

You did awesome.

Thanks for doing this thing and kids.

Um writer, that was fantastic.

Uh, by the way, uh this is I'm just gonna be family right now.

It's Liam's 16th birthday today.

So, man, great to see you here.

Uh, normally we do a benediction, and a benediction is a blessing, and I it generally is in the frame of just reminding you of how loved you are by God.

I want to change it up.

I want you to actually give one another a benediction.

Okay, on your way out, this is your invitation or challenge, depending on your personality.

Um, would you bless somebody?

Real simply, hey, you're loved by your heavenly father.

That's it.

We're all gonna do it, so it won't be weird.

But if you're feeling like it might be weird and I need something to kind of intro the conversation, um, I was thinking about um one of our family's favorite Christmas Eve traditions, because I'm gonna see you all on Christmas Eve, is after our Christmas Eve service, we have La Villa raviolis.

They're delicious.

And if you don't know what Lavilla raviolis are, um look it up.

We ordered ours already, picking them up tomorrow.

Praise the Lord.

All right?

So if you need a question to ask somebody to go a little, you know, start the conversation, just say, what's one of your favorite Christmas traditions?

And then you are loved by your Heavenly Father.

You got it?

All right, you're loved to see ya three days, Christmas Eve.

We hope you are blessed by this message.

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