YouTube Content

Good morning. Good morning. Welcome to WCC. We are very happy to see you this morning, especially this morning. You made it on time. It's always challenging when we lose 1 hour. And so, but we'll get it back in the fall. So welcome. And to those of you who are joining us online, If anybody is joining us online, we do encourage you to come in person sometime so we can visit with you and fellowship together. So today we get to hear from Minister Paul preaching from a passage in Luke chapter 13. In this passage, Jesus painted us a picture of contrast. So on one side of the picture, you see Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all the saints having a party in heaven with God. On the other hand, you have a group of people who are weeping, gnashing their teeth, banging on the heaven door trying to get into the party, but they were denied access. They were cast out. The sad part is the second group of people, they actually received the invitation into the party, but they either didn't RSVP or they replied saying, "I'm not coming," or, "Maybe I'll think about it." But the party already started and it's too late for them to change their mind. As I was preparing for the call to worship, I do remember back in my college days in China, on Sundays I would go to this Catholic church. I would take the bus, go to the Catholic church to attend the Sunday Mass. I was a Catholic back then. And this one time I took a friend with me And we just went in there, it's a big church. We sat in the front, maybe third or fourth pew from the front. That's always my preference so I can have a better view and nobody like Michael would block my view to the front. Yeah, so we just sat there and then this middle-aged woman came to us and asked us to move back. She didn't say why. I was thinking, oh, maybe they want to save the front several pews for elders, or maybe the choir presenting, or maybe they have a special guest. So I just— we just got up and moved to a few pews back. And then she walked over and told us to move even further back and didn't say any reason either. So at that time, it dawned on me. I said, oh, she probably thought I'm not a Christian. So I told her, I said, I'm also Christian and I would like to stay in the front. She said, oh, okay, so you can— you "Okay, you can stay here then." I know, right? That's a very bad witness from that woman and certainly bad PR for that church. But I want to assure you, WCC is totally the opposite. So I want to give you a contrast. We welcome everybody, and especially if you are still seeking, you have not accepted the Lord, we welcome you to the very front. You know, you can have the VIP seats. But the point I'm trying to make here is God is even better than WCC. He has sent you his invitation. He wants you to be in his party. He wants you to fellowship with him, to be very close to him. So if you still have not made your decision about that invitation, I strongly encourage you to think about it and to accept that invitation. The invitation is open still, but There is a deadline, and we don't know when is the deadline. So don't wait until it's too late. Let's pray. Dear God, we just thank you that we have the privilege to be here to listen to your words, to worship you, and to fellowship with our brothers and sisters. Lord, I just pray that today we would not harden our heart, but we would open it up for you. And Lord, even if we— if Some of us still have doubts, we still have questions. Lord, I just pray that you send your Spirit to give us answers, to enlighten us, and to open our mind, our heart to you, and to receive you openly and with enthusiasm. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Hello all. Oh, that's really loud. Um, thank you all for coming. Um, honestly, most of the, most of the congregation kind of ends up coming like during the worship and kind of trickle in. So thank you all for being so spry and on time, especially with the time change. So everyone, could you please stand and we'll go into a time of worship. A thousand.

A thousand generations falling down in worship to sing the song of ages to the Lamb. And all who've gone before us and all who will believe. We'll sing the song of ages to the Lamb. Your name, your name is the highest. Your name is the greatest. Your name stands above them all. All thrones and dominions, all powers and positions, your name Stands above them all, and the angels cry, "Holy, all creation cries, holy, you are lifted high, holy." holy forever. If you, and if you've been forgiven, and if you've been redeemed, sing the song forever to the Lamb. And if you walk in freedom, And if you bear his name, to sing the song forever to the Lamb. To sing the song forever, and amen. And the angels cry, holy, holy, all creation cries. Holy, you are lifted high. Holy, holy forever. May your people, may your people sing holy to the King of Kings. Holy, you will always be. Holy, holy forever. Your name, your name is the highest. Your name Is the greatest. Your name stands above them all. All thrones and dominions, all powers and positions. Your name stands above them all.

One more time.

Your name is the highest. Your name is the greatest. Your name stands above them all. All thrones and dominions, all powers and positions, your name stands above them all. And the angels cry Holy, all creation cries. Holy, you are lifted high. Holy, holy forever. May your people sing. Holy to the King of Kings. Holy, you will always be. Holy, holy forever. You will always be holy—holy for forever! Oh Lord, oh Lord my God, when I am awesome wonder, consider all the worlds thy hand hath made. I see the stars I hear the rolling thunder, thy path throughout the universe displayed. Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee, how great thou art! How great Thou art! Then sings my soul, my Saviour God, to Thee. How great Thou art! How great Thou art! And when, and when I think That God His Son not sparing sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in. That on the cross, my burden gladly bearing, He bled and died to take away my sin. Then sing, then sing, my soul, my sin Saviour God, to thee how great thou art, how great thou art. And sings my soul, my Saviour God, to thee how great thou art, how great When Christ shall come with shouts of acclamation and take me home, what joy shall fill my heart! Then I shall bow in humble humble adoration, and there proclaim, my God, how great you are. Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee, how great thou art, how great thou Then sings my soul, my Saviour God, to thee, how great thou art, how great thou art, how great thou art, how great thou art.

Let's bow our heads in prayer. Lord, thank you so much for this day. Um, everyone's lives and everyone's stories are just so— they're complex and they're unique. Um, there's so many experiences that they've gone through that no one else has, um, and their stories are so interesting. Lord, you know us all so much deeper than honestly any one of our peers could even imagine. And, you know, our peers, we don't know how interesting and how amazing and how much you've worked in the lives of everyone around us. So I pray that as we greet each other, that we be able to glimpse even for a moment of how interesting each and every one of us are. In your name I pray. Amen. Amen. Before you all be seated, please take a moment to greet each other and ask deep and uncomfortable questions.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, for scripture reading, we are in Luke chapter 13. I'll do the reading for us today. Next slide, please. Then Jesus told this story: A man planted A man planted a fig tree in his garden and came again and again to see if there was any fruit on it, but he was always disappointed. Finally, he said to his gardener, "I've waited 3 years and there hasn't been a single fig. Cut it down. It's just taking up space in the garden." The gardener answered, "Sir, give it one more chance. Leave it another year, and I'll give it special attention and plenty of fertilizer." If we get fixed next year, fine. If not, then you can cut it down. Someone asked him, "Lord, will only a few be saved?" He replied, "Work hard to enter the narrow door to God's kingdom, for many will try to enter but will fail. When the master of the house has locked the door, it will be too late. You will stand outside knocking and pleading, 'Lord, open the door for us!' But he will reply, I don't know you or where you come from.' Then you will say, 'But we ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.' And he will reply, 'I tell you, I don't know you or where you come from. Get away from me, all you who do evil!' There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, for you will see Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you will be thrown out. And people will come from all over the world, from east and west, north and south, to take their places in the kingdom of God. And note this: some who seem least important now will be the greatest then, and some who are the greatest now will be least important then. Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones God's messengers! How often I have wanted to gather your children together as a hen protects her chicks beneath her wings, but you were not willing. And now look, your house is abandoned, and you will never see me again until you say, 'Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the Lord!'" Thank you, Yuna.

I'd like to give you a big hug too, but I don't know if that would be appropriate under the circumstances. It's just, I'd like to hug every single one of you. It's a beautiful morning, and I'm just really glad to see all your faces. My son Abraham has joined us. He's back from college for a week, so welcome Abraham. He's got a couple of his buddies here also for spring break. It's nice to Good to see you. Now, I loved the way that Yuna described what Jesus is doing as like throwing a party. He's throwing a big party and he's invited us to come, and some people just didn't make it, or they didn't decide until the last minute they wanted to be there. And I think that really does describe one aspect of what we have to look forward to, not only in the future, but what God's doing right now is He's throwing a party. But it raises a question, at least in my mind, is why didn't Jesus come sooner? Why didn't the party start, you know, right after the Garden of Eden, or perhaps the time of Abraham, or maybe around the time of Moses He could have thrown the party, or the time of David? Well, no, He waited and waited and waited. And we're going to look a little bit about— at that. But there was one preacher, I actually heard him on YouTube, who described it this way. He said that God was preparing a bride for His Son. He was preparing a bride for His Son, that people weren't ready to go to the party until they knew what it was all about, or they knew what they were missing. So in other words, we had to learn all the history of the Old Testament before we could have the New Testament. And if you were going to find a bride, those of you who are men will probably have considered this, and you want to ask someone to marry you, what's the first thing you're going to think of? Will she say yes, right? Is she willing? Because you're not going to ask somebody who you know isn't going to say yes. At least in my case, she said yes. And perhaps some of you have stories of people who they didn't say yes, they weren't willing. And as we read that Jesus laments over those people who weren't willing to come to the party, but we are now prepared. Now, we've been talking about this invisible Kingdom of God versus the visible Kingdom of God, the visible being Israel, which was a country, a nation in history that we read about in the Bible. But we also are talking about this invisible kingdom, which is the kingdom that we have right now, which is everywhere all around the earth. And I wanted to, uh, just to go quickly to this record in John where Nicodemus, one of the leaders of the church, the— of the time, the Pharisees, went to Jesus to try to find out a little bit more about what was his message. And Jesus told him, unless you're born from above of the Spirit, you cannot even see, you cannot understand the kingdom of God. And Nicodemus is like, what do you mean? He says, if you don't believe me when I tell you about earthly things, how can you possibly believe if I tell you about heavenly things? So that's all of that history in the— or all of the reality that we see in the world is giving us a mirror or an opportunity to learn about what God is doing. So it— the idea of the invisible kingdom actually starts— for one way of looking at it, starts with David when he had become the king in the land of Israel that had been under judges. And Israel finally became a monarchy, and when King David had this beautiful place to live in, this palace to live in, and he realized that the tabernacle they had inherited from Moses' time was a little shabby, and he said, "We ought to have a better— we got to give God an upgrade, and we'll give Him a real temple, not just one of these tents that they used to move around the wilderness." God said, "Stop." He said, "I never asked for a temple." He said, "You want to build me one." And He said, "This is what I will do." And He said through His prophet to David, God said, "I will raise up your offspring after you." You're not going to be the one to do it, David. "But your offspring after you, he shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. And so he gave a promise to David that this kingdom is going to be forever. Now, did Israel last forever? It did not. So the visible kingdom of Israel did not, but the— in what we have, the new Israel is still going on and will go on forever. So this is the promise. But I don't imagine David really understood right away exactly what was going on. He expected that his son would be the one to build a temple. And indeed, Solomon did build a temple, but before Solomon, there was an older brother. Solomon was like the fourth in line to be king, and these other brothers, one at a time, had this or that go wrong, including Absalom. Now, who knows the name Absalom? If you were picking them out of a lineup of all of David's sons, could you pick Absalom out of the line? You could. How would you know Absalom? He's the guy with all the hair. He's like the Yanni, you know, that musician from Greece called Yanni. He's got all this hair. He had the hair and he had won the hearts of Israel. He was always out there with the people and he was conversing with them. They loved Absalom. Everybody loved Absalom. But Absalom got a little bit full of himself and decided he wasn't going to wait for David to die. Die, he was going to take over the army and claim that he would be king, and he rebelled. And that started a civil war. Absalom dies. Remember when he gets his hair stuck in a tree that his horse goes under, and then one of the generals on David's side thrusts through the spear. Absalom dies. And you think David should be relieved that his men on the of the war they won, and Absalom— the rebellion has been put down. But no, David is distraught. Absalom, my son! Oh, my son Absalom, would I have died instead of you! And in there, he was just so disappointed that that could possibly happen. Everything for David was always going right, and this is about the worst thing. It just didn't make any sense to him. Of course, later then when Solomon came along, or when he realized Solomon was going to be the one to take over, everything got normalized. And of course, David didn't live to see it, but Solomon built this amazing temple. And that temple survived for about 400 years through many generations of Israel's kings, some of them good and some of them not so good, until finally Israel had had really been so corrupted that God sent the Babylonians to destroy Jerusalem and to carry away the people to Babylon in the so-called exile. And again, you have this great time of lamenting. So we read about Jesus lamenting, but even before Jesus lamented over Jerusalem, there was this guy Jeremiah. And he wrote a whole book of the Bible called Lamentations. Which is only 5 chapters, but if you're ever in a bad mood sometime, go read it. Most of the time you just wouldn't want to go anywhere near it. I mean, who would want to read Lamentations? There's like one which we'll read in a second, but let me start here. So this is the sense you get. It's all about Jerusalem being destroyed. Jerusalem sinned grievously, therefore she became filthy. All who honored her despise her. "Her fall is terrible; she has no comforter. O Lord, behold my affliction, for the enemy has triumphed." This terrible time in their history for all of those righteous Israelites who were just, again, just distraught. How could this happen that our glorious history and our king and our temple has just been wiped out by these bad guys from Babylonia? It just— it was terrible. But in the middle of it, in a few chapters in the middle of the book of Lamentations, Jeremiah, a man of God, a prophet for his whole life, he has a brainstorm. He was retired. He couldn't be a prophet anymore because they had no more nations. So like Henry, he had time to think. And this is what he thought: This I call to mind, and therefore I have hope. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. And that same Jeremiah is the one to whom God gave this revelation of a new covenant, a covenant that would not be like the old covenant, like, like the one that was broken in the time of Moses. I will put my law within them and will write it on their hearts. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor, saying, know the Lord, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. Jeremiah chapter 31. And so what was that going to look like? It would— it still took a a few hundred years for it to become clear. But this was the beginning of a hope after the exile. And sure enough, Israel, if you know the history, they came back from exile, or some of them did, and they rebuilt a temple in the time of Herod before Jesus was born. They started to rebuild it into an even better version of the original and spared no expense to to make this awesome, you know, one of the wonders of the world, and it looked something like this. So much so that in the Gospel of Mark, the disciples who came from the north, right, most of them are from— they're from Galilee in the north. They don't get to see the temple very often. They're going down to Jerusalem one day and they say to Jesus, "Wow, look at these wonderful stones and these wonderful buildings. Isn't this awesome, this great temple we have?" And they were so excited about it. But what did Jesus notice about the temple? As you remember from the record, all He could see was the corruption. He said, "It is written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations,' but you made it into a den of thieves with the money changers on the way in and on the way out." So He wasn't so enamored with it. And He was always in conflict with the temple leadership. And the scribes, in just the previous chapter where we were last week, they're pressing Him, trying to catch Him or trying to find a way to accuse Him in anything that He's saying. They don't like it. They don't like what He seems to stand for, and they're trying— they just can't figure out where He's coming from. And finally they caught him. And this was one of the— don't look at the picture, just look at the words there. It says, "We heard him say, 'I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and in 3 days I will build another not made with hands.'" And that was one of the key charges that brought him down, so to speak, that they could accuse him and say, "Hey, he's against us." He wants to destroy the temple. And the reason I put this picture in there is this is a picture back when Samson destroyed the temple of the Philistines. And when he did, of course, the building fell on him as well. But he killed all like 2,000 or 3,000 of the leaders of the Philistines in the same go. He brought down that temple and it laid the foundation for the building of the temple in Israel. And this is what happens, kind of what Jesus did by allowing himself to be crucified, or brought down that whole old temple system and made the path for a new temple made without hands, not made with hands. In other words, the invisible temple. So finally, we can go back to the scripture reading from today. Which starts with this very short parable about a tree. And I love this picture where the gardener and the owner are kind of walking around this tree and scratching their head and wonder— weighing the pros and cons of cutting it down. Who wants to cut down a tree? It might have been there for 20 years. And so it has this great potential, or maybe at one point it was giving a lot of fruit, but it hasn't been giving fruit fruit lately, and what are we going to do about it? And of all— ultimately, of course, if this still has no more fruit after 3 years, they decide they're going to cut it down. And the obvious implication is that these— the leaders of the temple, or this whole— the whole nation of Israel is not producing fruit. And how long are we going to be patient? And there is a limit on God's patience. And he's saying, we will— after a short amount of time more, they're going to cut it down. And this is not a happy thing. And this is really— again, you think Jesus should have been happy, right? But he wasn't. Why wasn't he happy? Well, because this was a loss. There was a lot of wonderful things going on in Israel and wonderful people and innocent people. Maybe some that would have said yes, but they were hindered by the whole structure of what was going on there. So He says, "O Jerusalem, how often I would have gathered your children together, but you were not willing." He didn't want it that way. Imagine if the people had rallied around Him. It would have been a whole different ending, wouldn't it? And He went on to say, "Your house is abandoned." It's ruined. It's game over. He's announcing to the Pharisees, but again, that's not a happy thing. He says, "You will not see me until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.'" In other words, even though this house is going down, game over, but the new game is coming. It's coming when he is Messiah. On Palm Sunday, as you know the story, Jesus entered Jerusalem, they put Him up on a— well, He's on a donkey, but they put out all these cloths and palms in the road, and He's walking down the hill and entering Jerusalem. And what are they all saying? Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. That was like probably the happiest moment, the most triumphant for Jesus to feel what it was like to be accepted, at least for that moment and that time. But later that very morning, as he came into town, it says he saw the city and he wept over it saying, "I would that you had known the things that make for peace, but they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you when your enemies will tear you down, and they will not leave one stone upon another in you because you did not know the time of your visitation." So he knew that it was just a glimpse of the future, the party that was coming, all those singing of Hosanna. But that this destruction— and this is a picture, who knows what this is a picture of? I've shown it before, of the rocks, the stones below the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, where when the Romans destroyed the temple and pushed the stones off. You can still see them to this day, and they're huge. You can see the man that's in the picture to give you a sense for how big they are. Indeed, one stone was not left upon another. Now, and when Jesus was being crucified, as they led him away up the hill towards Golgotha, he had another moment where he also expressed this lament. When there's some women that were mourning and lamenting for him, following as he— as he was being led up there, he turned to them and said, "Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For behold, the days are coming when they will say, 'Blessed are the wombs that never bore and breasts that never nursed.'" True sadness is still coming, and that is the tribulation that would come to Jerusalem, although it took Nearly 40 years after that, for finally everything came to a head and the Romans destroyed what was left of Jerusalem and the temple and put an end to the priesthood and the whole sacrificial system and everything they knew as temple Judaism was no more. That was the— what— when he And He had warned the Pharisees that there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, and you'll see all the people entering the Kingdom of God, but yourselves cast out. This is one of the ways that that is fulfilled. And we see that even though some people, the door is shut, but for all these new people, that is the people from all over the world, east, west, north, and south, were able to come into the Kingdom of God. So we've shown you this before too. It's like this is the door. There's like the narrow door and the wide door. The people in Israel are having to make a choice. They're going to go with the new kingdom or not. But then there's all these other people from the rest of the world that have a chance to come in. So it sort of turned the kingdom on its head going from the visible to the invisible. So who is and where is the temple Now, this is the good news. The people are coming. This is in the first century. I'm sorry, I got ahead of one slide. And this is what it looked like in the first century. They didn't have the temples anymore. The first century church, what did they have? What do they— they had houses. Yeah, they had anywhere they could go. Anywhere the people went is where the church was. So that was a pretty good, uh, pretty practical from a financial That's the end point, wasn't it? They didn't need much to raise much money, but they went and spread like wildfire. And that is the church today. And Paul writes in 1 Corinthians, he said, "You are the temple." We are the temple, even though we don't look like it. I liked how Kevin was describing how we all have such complicated stories if we only had a chance to hear. I know he does. We all do. If you have a chance to get to know people, you're like, wow. And being a pastor, which I've only been doing for about almost 2 years now, I learned to listen more. And it's been a great ride so far. I liked also when Henry said he has time to think as retirement. That's something for me to look forward to. But if there's any job that you get to think in aside from retirement, it's pastoring. Because just this passage, for example, just preparing for a sermon, you have time to think, and it's a really delightful thing to have time for. But we are the temple, and this is where things are happening. This is the bride of Christ, the people who said yes, who said, "I'll go to the party." Last night, Michael was sharing how he would organize a couples event at his home for cross-cultural couples. This is a few years ago, and he would send out invitations not knowing who was going to come. And he said, "Peiji was—" Peiji, are you here today? Peiji was like, immediately would write back, "We're coming. We're coming." And it was like such a big boost to know that, yes, people are saying, "Yes, we want to be part of this party." And we do. We rejoice with those who with those who rejoice. But does that mean that we now— we're all happy all the time, right? And we have no more troubles? No. We also have to weep with those who weep because life is still life and we're still overcoming some of everything that we need to go through from generation to generation. But God's heart is that He wants us to wipe away every tear from their eyes. This is the goal. This is what we're working on. But we still have tears, but then we will wipe them from our eyes. Our spirit is willing, but our flesh is weak. So when we read about lament in the New Testament, like we did now with Jesus lamenting, we have to wonder, are we called to lament? And we don't— that's not a sort of thing that we would want to sign up for. Who would like to sign up for being sad for the next week? Nobody would. And yet that is part of the Christian life. And I just want to spend a few moments before I'm done to consider about lamenting or sadness in our lives and how that makes— how that works to help the kingdom function. And one aspect, as we know, when we do in our All our WCC get-togethers, we have what we call highs and lows, and we'll share what's going on with you that's good or maybe that's not so good. And a lot of times, you know, when people are new to a meeting, they'll, "Oh, I'll have highs, but I don't have lows this week." Well, what does that mean? "Well, I haven't been thinking about it too hard," or, "I have lows, but I would never want to tell you about my lows because those are private." unmentionable, unmentionable lows, unshareable. And I can understand that, but, but the sharing— when we do share our lows, it really brings us together in a special way that doesn't happen if we don't. I think also the sadness, or when things don't go our way, sometimes we learn to be more compassionate for other people when we have suffered. Things. And it also helps to empower our prayers when we feel strongly about something or someone or really sad for them. Now, the good example of this, or very extreme example, is when Saint Stephen, as they call him— Stephen was a deacon in the early church— was stoned by some of the zealous Jews in Jerusalem at the time. Time, among whom was Paul, who later became the apostle. And when he was being stoned, as he was dying, he said, he shouted out, "Lord, don't hold this against them. They don't know what they're doing," the people that were stoning him. He was asking for the forgiveness of the Lord for those in his company, among whom was Paul, who heard those words and may have had an impact later in Paul's life, which then, of course, affected all of us. Paul again, late in his life— this is his last letter that he wrote, was 2 Timothy. And he asked Timothy to join him. He was imprisoned, but he was still able to write up to that point. And he said, Timothy, this is it. You know, this time I'm done for. I'm going to go in for the death penalty. "But hurry, come to visit me before I go, and bring my parchments." He's very focused on— the parchments were the copies of his letter. That was the Word of God. That was what he was leaving behind him. Now, you could read about how he encourages Timothy to kind of take over the role of Paul, but do we ever read about Timothy later on in history, the great Timothy? We don't. So Timothy, I'm imagining, is a kind of a disappointment, frankly. And I don't know if this is— I mean, this picture sort of does it well. Paul, in fact, was supposedly short. So this is not historically accurate. But I think from an artistic point of view, it sort of shows this towering, wise Paul, powerful apostle, and then this sort of shrunken-down— Timothy, what? You know, what's going on here? And trying to keep up with him. And so I imagine that Paul was disappointed that Timothy wasn't who he hoped. And in his last letter, Paul describes who deserted him and how things are falling apart. And that Paul must have really wondered, Lord, is this something I did wrong? It's not quite what he wanted. And yet he had to trust that God was in it. And he describes about this thorn in his flesh and everything's— and God says, "My grace is sufficient for thee." So I just want to think for a moment about loss. And I know all of us have had them. And I tried to think of, you know, the various stories of loss I could tell, but you all have your stories. Of who you've lost, what you've lost. I had cancer in my fingertip, skin cancer, and the doctor told me I had to remove a part of my finger, cut it off. And I was like, "Cut off part of my finger? That's terrible!" I was 46 at the time. I didn't want to cut off part of my finger, and I remembered I had another brother a brother in this fellowship I was in at the time, and I'm sort of kind of complaining I'm going to lose my fingertip. Well, it turns out that brother had lost half of his colon, and he said, "Well, how much of your colon do you have left?" I said, "Well, I got my whole colon." He said, "You should be glad you have your whole large intestine. It's a lot more important than your fingertip." So the losses, though, when we all have them and it's painful and it hurts. And it's easy to go over those in our minds. Sometimes we caused it. Sometimes we will blame it on other people or even blame it on God. Sometimes it's financial. Sometimes we lost friendships. You can remember many. Sometimes it's not past losses, it's future, things that we were hoping for that didn't pan out. The girl we invited to the prom that wouldn't say yes. I think I disappointed my dad a little bit with my grades in high school. Because my grades weren't so good, I didn't get into a good college. My dad had gone to Yale. So he thought he went to Yale, I should go to Yale, right? Well, it didn't work out that way. And so I imagine, although he would never say, you know, he would never say that out loud, but I feel like I disappointed him. But then I was able to get into law school even though I had gone to a mediocre college. I got into a good law school, but if you know anything about law school, after your first year of the 3 years, you try to get into the Law Review. The Law Review are like the elite students, the top 10% or so within a law school become Law Review, and they have to take this— they have to write— they write something after the first year of school in order to qualify for the Law Review. Well, I'd finished my first year of law school, and I had the thing to write. I had a week to do it. I didn't write it. I found other things to do on Monday. Then I found other things to do on Tuesday. And then I found other things to do on Wednesday. And by Thursday I said, "You know what? Even if I did write it, they're not going to pick me. So forget it." Well, a week later or so my dad asked, "So how's the law review?" thing going. I was like, I didn't turn it in. And, oh, Absalom, Absalom, my son, my son is not going to be in law review, and you didn't even try. And he like composed himself. He didn't say any of those things. He just composed himself. And he posed himself. He looked at me and said, "You can't do that." You can't do that. That's all he said. The last thing before finishing, I just wanted to remember how when David had this terrible time in his life, remember when he got Bathsheba pregnant and then he got Uriah murdered. They had the baby. Bathsheba had the baby. But Nathan confronted David and said, "That baby is going to die." But David, again, he knew that it was all his fault and it was a terrible thing and he went and prayed to God and fasted. "God, save this child." But the child died. When the child died, all of his servants thought, "Uh-oh, he's going to be really upset." But no. After David's— this baby died, he got up, he washed his face, and he went back to do his business. He said— and they asked him, "Why did you get over it so quickly?" He said, "While there was still time, I wanted to pray for the child, but now that he's dead, it's time to move on." And so this is a lesson even in the loss. There's a time to tear up. And a time to cry and a time to get over it. So I hope that we will take the long view. And this is my, uh, quote from my dad. Whenever anything would go wrong, he would say, "Everything's gonna be alright." If I skinned my knee or whatever it was, he would say, "Everything's gonna be alright." And that's the end. So let us pray. Father, we are thankful for the David Choir who's sitting outside the door— standing. Kevin, should we let the David Choir sing first and you can do your thing? We're thankful for your words, your scripture. It's so rich, we could barely scratch the surface. We're just thankful for the time that we have Sunday after Sunday to rally around your word, to rally around your Spirit, and to rally around each other. And thankful for for each heart here. I just pray that whatever loss they've suffered and the trauma, uh, and past, present, or future, that you are with us and that your grace is sufficient for us, and that at every opportunity, whenever you're inviting us, we will always be willing and say yes. I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Smile.

Eternal love everlasting, reign on. Holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, worthy is the Lamb who was slain. Highest praises to our Glory, glory, we adore your name. We adore your name. We are the broken, you are the healer. Jesus, Redeemer, mighty Savior. You are the last stone. We'll sing forever, bowing before you, blessing your name. Holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, worthy is the Lamb who was slain.

All right, would all please rise for our reflection song.

There's nothing.

There's nothing worth more that would ever come close. Nothing can compare. You're our living hope. Your presence, Lord. I taste it and see. Of the sweetest of loves, where my heart becomes free and my shame is undone. Your presence, Lord. Holy Spirit, you are welcome here. Come flood this place and fill the atmosphere. Your glory, God, is what our hearts long for. So be all welcome, By your presence, Lord.

Your presence, Lord.

There's nothing— there's nothing worth more that would ever Your comfort, nothing can compare.

You're our living home, your presence.

Taste it and see of the sweetest of loves, where my heart becomes free and my shame is undone.

Be your presence, just the Lord.

Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit, you are welcome to come on this place and fill the atmosphere. Your glory, God, is what our hearts long to be of.

—by your presence! Ohh...

Let us be calm on the waves of life. Of your presence. Let us experience the glory of your goodness.

Let us become more aware of your presence.

Let us experience the glory of your goodness. Let us become more aware of your presence.

Let us experience the glory of your goodness.

Let us become more aware of your presence. Let us experience the glory Holy Spirit.

Holy Spirit, you are welcome here. Come flood this place and fill me up once more.

Let your Glory, God, is what our hearts long for, to be overcome by your presence, Lord.

Your presence, Lord.

May be seated.

Good morning, everybody. I'd first like to ask, are there any visitors here this morning? If so, we have a gift for you if you'll raise your hand.

Okay.

Somebody will get you a booklet here, I believe.

Yep.

These are the— are these your biker friends, Abraham, or that went across? Okay. All right. Good. Welcome, guys. Good to see you. We did hear about the adventures of one biking around with Abraham. If you would go to the next slide, we have some opportunities for events coming up, and today is the— there's one on the agenda at 12:30. 12:30 down below us, that's W103, and it's a town hall meeting to discuss the ideas that you might have in terms of what we need to do with this building project that we've discussed. And so if you'd like to join us, come on down at 12:30. Then Momco at this coming Tuesday at 6:00 and the prayer circle that we we usually have every week at— on Wednesday evening. The rest of the fellowships you can read about. And if you'd like to get more up-to-date information from us, there is the WhatsApp that we send out notifications, and there's also the website at Church Center. I think that's all that I have. Well, the next slide discusses the different ways you can get to Church Center, as we discussed last week. So if you'd like to get If you want to get more information on how to stay in touch, talk to me, talk to Dwight, and James Pryor is in the back and he can get you set up with Church Center, or you can download the app and go from there. If you would please rise for the doxology. Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

Praise him, all creatures here below.

Praise him above in heavenly host. Praise God from heaven.

May the Lord bless you and protect you. May the Lord smile on you and be gracious to you. May the Lord show you his favor and give you his peace.

Amen.

Thank you for being here.