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Good morning, everyone.

Good morning.

Welcome to worship our God and listen to his words. In Jesus' name, we begin today's worship. In Matthew, the book of Matthew, chapter 5, verse 48, Jesus said, "You therefore must be perfect." As your Heavenly Father is perfect.

Wow!

It's a tall demand, isn't it? In the beginning of Matthew chapter 5 is the famous Sermon on the Mount. Jesus listed listed the kind of hearts in people that deserve God's blessings. The standard is high. For sure, no one can achieve. Therefore, the demand that we must be as Be perfect as God Father is an encouragement, an urge. As a Christian, life is always a struggle. We must face not only the oppressions coming from outside world, Moreover, we must confront our sinful hearts from within, which is much harder. We know that we cannot purge all our sinful minds, but we must strive on. Through all our lives. This the reason that we come every week to worship him and listen to his words, his instructions, to change and purify our hearts. That's for Let's pray. Thank you, Father, that you give us a teachable heart that we can strive on to purge all the sinful thoughts, that we can gradually to become your acceptable children. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

All right, everyone, could you all please stand and, uh, we'll enter our time of worship.

O Lord. O Lord my God, when I am awesome wonder, consider all the world thy hands have made. I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder, Thy power throughout the universe is plain. Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee, how great Thou art, how great Thou art. Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee. How great thou art, how great thou art. And when I, 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. This is my soul, my Savior 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 Thou art. When Christ— When Christ shall come with shouts of acclamation and take me home, what joy shall fill my heart! Then I shall bow in humble adoration and there proclaim, my God, how great thou art. Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee, how great thou art, how great thou art. Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee, How great thou art, how great thou art. One more time. Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee. How great thou art, how great thou art. Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee, how great thou art, how great thou art. 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 will sing the song of ages to the Lamb. Your name is the highest. Your name is the greatest. Your name stands above them all, above 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, then sing the song forever to the Lamb. And if you walk in freedom, and if you bear his name, then sing the song forever to the Lamb. Sing the song forever and amen. And the angels cry, "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, above all thrones and dominions, all powers and positions, your name stands above them all. Jesus, your name is the highest, your name is the greatest, your name stands above them all. Above 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." Hear your people sing, holy, holy to the King of Kings. Holy, you will always be. Holy, holy forever. You will always be holy, holy forever.

Let's bow our heads in prayer. Lord, thank you for, um, just bringing us all here that we may not only fellowship together, um, and eat and laugh, but we will also be able to learn about you, that we'll be able to be reminded of the promises that you have for us and of all the things that you've done in our lives to bring us to this point. Um, I pray they'll be able to just have open hearts and open ears to listen and absorb what it is, the truth that you have to reach to us today. In your name I pray.

Amen.

All right, we spend the next couple of minutes greeting your neighbor and saying hello.

Let's read today's scripture. Let's read it together. The Lord said to Moses, speak to the people of Israel that they take for me a contribution from every man whose heart is smooth, you shall receive the contribution for me. And this is the contribution that you shall receive from me: gold, silver, and bronze, yarns and fine-twined, goat's hair, tanned ram's skin, goat's skin, acacia wood, oil for the lamp, spices, 'Anax stone and stones for setting, and let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell in their midst.' And they came, everyone whose hearts stirred and everyone whose spirit moved him, and brought the Lord's contribution to the altar. For the tent of meeting, and for all its service, and for the holy garments. So they came, both men and women, all who were of willing hearts, with all sorts of objects, every man dedicating the offering to the Lord, all the men and women. The people of Israel, whose hearts moved them to bring anything for the work that the Lord had commanded by Moses to be done, brought it as a freewill offering to the Lord. And Moses said, Naqodan, Penzali, and Oholib, and every craftsman in whose mind the Lord had put the skill, everyone whose heart stirred them to come to do the work. And they received from Moses all the contribution the people of Israel had brought for doing the work on the sanctuary. They still kept bringing him feir'ah offering every morning. So that all the craftsmen who were doing every sort of task on the sanctuary came, each from the task that he was doing, and said to Moses, "The people bring much more than enough for doing the work that the Lord has commanded us to do. So Moses gave command, and the word was proclaimed throughout the camp, that no man or woman do anything more for the contribution for the sanctuary. So the people were restrained from bringing, for the material they had was sufficient to do all the work and more. The sermon's title is Zeal for His Zigurat.

I had to dig deep to find an alliteration for the word zeal. Zigurat is like a pagan temple of some kind with And for us, it's just a figure of speech. Now, you're probably expecting that I'm going to say, "Okay, no offering today. We're just going to close down the offering for the rest of the year. We have enough." Wouldn't that be nice? Has there ever been a church in American history— maybe some other country— where they ever told you to stop giving? That was an astonishing, astonishing record we have right there in Exodus. But what it tells us, one thing it tells us, is that the people had— must have had great enthusiasm for the work that God had commanded. Let me get the mic here, be a little closer there, Forrester. So the question is, why did they give so much? They obviously were motivated, and it says that God even stirred in their heart. And so we're gonna look a little bit into this question and kinda ask ourselves, what is the application for us today? If it's not to stop giving, what is the application? Now, many of you know, perhaps all of you know, that WCEC has just launched the beginning of October a drive for pledges to see, do we have enough support to actually build another building right north of this one on the vacant land that we have? So there's an application Right? We can make this message very, very short. We'll just all pass out the pledge forms and we'll do what the Scripture tells us, right? Bring all of our offerings and build. But not so fast, because the type of building that we have today isn't quite like the sanctuary. What was the sanctuary like in those days? Well, it looked something like this. They called it a tent. It was mobile. They could take it down and put it back up somewhere else because the people of Israel were wandering around the wilderness between Egypt and what is now Israel for many years, 40 years. So it was a mobile temple, a sanctuary. Now, have you ever seen one of these in Delaware? You have? In Delaware? No.

Where?

On my computer. Okay, you're going to make it as a lawyer when you're coming up with all of these reasonings, I'm sure, Grace. No, but actually if you go to Pennsylvania, you will find one. Who's seen one in Pennsylvania? Ah, yes, some Mennonite village has constructed a replica. Of the tent part, the internal part of the tabernacle. So you can see it kind of looks a little bit like this on the inside, where you can see the menorah, the candlestick, the golden candlestick, and the table where they had the bread, and the Ark of the Covenant on the inside, and the cherubim with their wings over it, and the mercy seat. Of course, it's not real gold if you go to Pennsylvania. But these were— some parts were pure gold, some were laid over with gold. And this— each of these parts has a lot to talk about. We're not going to do that today. In a few weeks' time, we'll have a message all about what we can learn from how the Tabernacle was constructed. It takes 8 chapters in the book of Exodus for God to give all these instructions to Moses and to the craftsmen exactly how he wanted to build it. So instead though, we're looking at why. Why they wanted to build something like this. Now we know that later, some 400 years later, after they were set up in the Promised Land for some time and David united— Saul, I guess, united the kingdom, and then David built a lot of resources. Solomon built a temple, which was intended to be a permanent, not moving around, but a permanent fixed structure where all of the priests activities would happen and which would be the center of the community and the place where God dwelt. So if we don't want to build one of those tents, we can build something like this? No, that would be even a little bit too expensive and extravagant. These are temples meant for the Old Covenant. But are we living in the Old Covenant? I don't know about you, but I'm not. I'm living in the New Covenant. So what is the New Covenant equivalent of the tabernacle or the sanctuary? And this is where— what do you say, Grace? What is the New Testament equivalent of the sanctuary of God that they were building? I'm sorry? A church.

A church.

And you started to do something else. You pointed at something else too. I thought you were pointing at your heart. Excellent. So it's really, it's too much to say in one word, isn't it? So in one sense, God dwells in the hearts of every believer. He also dwells in the local church, but he also dwells in his whole kingdom wherever that goes, which is wherever we go. So that is what— so it looks a little bit like this. Now in English, we use the same word, church. For the structure, the building that we built, as we do for the people that are in it. But how many of you recognize Chinese characters or speak Chinese? How many words for church do we have in Chinese? Well, probably more than two, but at least two, and one of them means jiao hui. Which one is that? Jiao tang? So yeah, one of the words in Chinese, jiao tang, means the building. And one word, zhao hui, that means the people in the building. And so God's sanctuary, where he lives, is not in the building. It's in the people. The building is like a container or a platform or a stage where the people do the things, do their thing, do God's thing. And I don't know about you, but I think that's great news. It means we can be creative. Now some people don't want to be creative. They want to do it the same way we've been doing it for 2,000 years. And I have an example, or maybe 1,000 years, an example of that later on in the church I grew up in called the Greek Orthodox Church where they take pride in never changing anything. But for me, I mean, let's get creative. We can try different things because wherever the people go is where the church goes. Now, we know that the— if we look at Jesus and how he treated the temple, it's really interesting. He didn't live in Jerusalem where the temple was. He lived north in the Galilee region in Nazareth and did a lot of his preaching there. But a few times during his ministry, he went down to Jerusalem. And one time, actually, he may have done this twice, so it depends on how you count the the timing. He went in at the Passover, and what did he do? He made up a ruckus and turned over the tables of the money changers and kicked over the cages, and all the pigeons were running around crazy and made a mess. And what did he say?

Matthew?

He said that the house of my Father is not finished yet.

Yes, my Father's house is a house of prayer, and you've made it into a den of foxes, a den of thieves. So he— was he criticizing this brick structure, or the pillars, or the roof tiles, or the paintings? No, he was criticizing the people, what they're doing on the inside. And it says in John, he summarizes that when the disciples saw it, they remembered a prophecy from Psalm 69, which says, the passion for God's house will consume me. Passion for God's house will consume me. Or in other translations, the zeal for his house will consume me. So Jesus had a zeal. For God's house, and he evidenced it in this case. But again, he's not so much looking at the people as the building as the people. And then there was this time— what, what incident is this a picture of? Jesus talking to a Samaritan woman at the well. Now, Samaria was north, including north of Jerusalem, as a part of the country that wasn't Judean. They weren't following, they didn't even go to the temple. They had their own places of worship. So historically, they had been part of Israel, but they'd come— part of Israel and Judah had been united, remember, but they had divided. And so the Samaritan woman, when she saw, oh, this Jewish man is talking to me, she said, sir, I have a question for you. We worship in this mountain, and you worship down in Jerusalem. Which is the right place? And he said— who knows what he said? Which is right, north or south, is the right place to worship? Jerusalem or the north? Come on, Matthew, you always get the answer. I can count on you, right? He said neither one. The time is coming when neither up north on your mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship God, because why? God is a spirit. And he asks us to worship him in spirit, which means it's not defined by a building or a place. Exactly. And in fact, Jesus prophesied when the disciples were walking around Jerusalem saying, wow, this temple is awesome, look at those stones, look at those arches. And what Jesus said— what did he say about the temple? He says, don't be too impressed because within a generation it's all going to fall down and not one stone will be on top of another. And indeed, his prediction came true in 70 AD when not only Jerusalem was burned, but the whole temple was destroyed and the priesthood was destroyed and the Old Covenant was just— was ended. And that made way for the new covenant, because now the people were free from that artificial limitation and all the things that were going wrong in it. So we see the church as a container, a platform, a stage, and the environment where the people can do as God asks. And therefore, whether we're talking about our church or anyone building something of a sanctuary for God, the possibilities are endless. And indeed, when we look around at some of the churches that are out there, one of the ones we've looked at and the one, if you look on the back wall there, there's a drawing of it, potentially a gym, essentially a basketball court, multipurpose room. And here's one that's actually functioning in Dallas, and I was there in May. And you can see—

is this—

You can see the— they're holding a conference there, but you can see the stage is kind of cut away in the side of the basketball court. And you can see the baskets pulled up high onto the roof. So this is one, just one way that we could structure another building here on site that would be able to house a lot of different activities, including including services, of course. But this is one of the key things that we're considering, that the church is thinking about, is why build? Is it only to have Bible studies and Sunday morning church meetings? If so, then we have enough space. But what if we did more activities? And that's the question, what is a church for? And then we have people that would rather just, okay, we just want church for Sunday. And people know, we go every week, every day. Well, what are you going to do? Well, we could play pickleball. We could have cooking lessons. We could do speech contests. We could do dancing or all kinds of things. Whatever you do in the community, you could do on— and the church could organize and do it in a different way. So we have a lot of range of activities that are possible. Now, if you ask me, What would I like to see? And this is just, okay, this is timeout. We should probably pause the broadcast at this point. This is like totally top secret and unofficial. But for me, what I would like to do is have this big Asian food court right on the corner there with a big Chinese, one of those pai fang, one of those big gates like they have in Chinatown with the pillars and the— big thing across it with Chinese characters on it so that everybody that drove down Limestone would know this place has Chinese heritage. And everybody will— I'm going to think I'm going to pull in there. And if they don't like Chinese food, they can have Korean or Japanese or Filipino or the curry house, all in these little— can you see they're like little stalls, like in a food court? But then on Sunday morning, a food court's closed down. And then we rearrange the chairs and we have our services there too. And so it's kind of a self-sustaining— it's both for outreach, we're getting the word out, we can house the services. And guess what? Sunday lunch will never be better than if we have all of these restaurants. We just take turns ordering from which one and we don't have to cook it every Sunday morning. I'm advocating to the church. These guys really work hard. Has anyone ever had a lunch at the church before? Free lunch at the church. Did you ever see those guys sweating? They're sweating in the back. They've been there for hours buying the food, chopping the food, cooking the food. And they save a bundle of money by doing it that way. And it tastes pretty good. But it could be even better, couldn't it? We could have Thai food once in a while. So anyway, that is— okay, now you can turn everything back on again. Back to the normally scheduled program. So the question, of course, is when do you— should we do this? It may not be the right time. And this is why this church is structured, if you notice the way that our chairman Richard Jeong announced it. We don't know if this is the right time to build it. And if you look in Ecclesiastes 3, it says, "For everything there is a season and a time for every activity under heaven, a time to tear down and a time to build up." But how do we know if this is the time? And indeed, when they built the West Wing, I heard they were talking about it for how many years? How many years were they talking about it before they actually— How long did it take for Dinglan? 10, roughly 10 years. They had the plan, they had the— it took 10 years before they decided it was the right time. And so maybe this is only year 1 of a, you know, inning 1 of a 9-inning game.

I don't know.

But we'll find out by December because we've got the pledges out there. If people pledge, it means it's the right time. If they don't, it's not. So that's okay. We could just wait. Right? They waited 10 years for the West Wing. We could wait a few years for this one too. Now, my next question is, when you read— we just read about how Moses said, "Let's take a contribution," and then what they brought was enough, and it was more than enough. Here's the question: how many people think that everybody lined up and they all gave— 100% of the people gave something into the contribution, and that's why it's too much? Raise your hand. Okay, who thinks 80% of the people all brought money and they lined up and they brought it, it was too much? Who thinks 60% of the people all brought money and it was too much? Who thinks 40% of the people probably, it was only 40% that God's heart moved? Who just doesn't want to vote?

Ah.

Who never raises their hand in church no matter what? Ah, okay, this is more suitable for the youth group, I suppose. I have a guess, and I'll tell you in a minute, but I'm pretty sure it was less than half. I think it was probably less than 25%. These are people who had— they obviously had to have money, and they had to be willing to bring it. And not just money, you could see how they brought things in kind. Right? They brought their oil and their wood and their materials. And in one scripture, I don't think we had a chance to read it, it talks about they brought their skills. So some of them came to help sew and then came to help wash and came to help build. So there was an outpouring, but God motivated certain people to do it and other people He didn't. Now, there is— All right, so everybody whose heart stirred him— that was the question— is how many, what percent? And I think it was only about 25%. Now Paul, in the epistles, when he's asking people to be generous with their donations, he also says, but if you don't have anything, hey, it's okay. He says give according to what you have, not according to what you don't have. I'm not going to make life hard for you. That's not the idea. So, I mean, if you have credit card debt or something, you shouldn't be giving. You should be paying off your credit card debt first. And it's nice to have some savings, right? You don't want— you have a rainy day fund. You should have that. Even the church has savings. So the church which has savings isn't going to ask you to have no savings. That's not right. So that's no shame in not giving. So being willing— you have to be able and willing. Now the next question I have is this: did these Israelites that didn't give— is it because they had nothing? So these guys have been slaves all their lives. They're now in the wilderness, and they're being asked to make a contribution. Well, how much savings do slaves have? Not very much. But if you remember this part of the story, which is easy to overlook, that during the Exodus, after that last plague, but before or as they're on the way out, Moses told them, he said, "The people of Israel asked the Egyptians—" for clothing and articles of silver and gold. And the Lord caused the Egyptians to look favorably on the Israelites, and they gave the Israelites whatever they asked for. And so they stripped the Egyptians of their wealth. So that— you get it? So the 10th plague, every house in Egypt, they'd lost one of their sons. They realized they were sorry. They wanted them to go, and they said, 'We'll go, but we don't want to go empty-handed.' And they said, 'Here, take our rings, take our silver bowls, take our wood, take our oil.' And they gave them goods on the way out. And so the Israelites went out. Now, is this justified? Some people would say that this is like back wages. Remember, they were not paid, they were slaves for decades. And so you could say this is just the Israelites are getting their just wages that were not— that had been withheld for all those years. So, but my point is they had plenty. There were— now, I don't know if every family got an equal amount or how much they had, but we know that the significant percentage that had assets was greater than the percentage that actually gave. So what do we know then is some people would hold on to. So some were motivated to give, and some, even though they had assets, were not motivated to give. So we're gonna ask the question, why? Why didn't they want to give? And my answer is— I mean, you could talk about it all day— is they didn't have any kind of vision or any concept or any desire for what God was doing. They had no idea. What is the sanctuary? What are we gonna do there? How is that really gonna help us? I'd rather have my savings. Than see the house of God. What is it? House of God dwell with us? I don't get it. So I can appreciate that. And there's one story that I'm sure almost all of you have heard before, which happened just a few weeks, months, in the same time period that we're talking about, where Moses sent 12 spies into the land. And when they got there, they found out there's great fruit and there's amazing A land to plan, it's perfect, except one problem. They got these giant, ferocious, Goliath-type guys running all over the place. And they're looking mean. And they don't want us to just take over their land. So maybe we better not do it. We look like grasshoppers compared to them. You see the guy in the painting showing— they look at us like grasshoppers. They're going to squash us. So when the 12 spies got back, what was the percentage of spies that were not motivated to go into the Promised Land anymore? Do you remember? It was— it was 10 out of the 12. 10 out of the 12 did not trust that they could do it, that God would still really be with them. But 2 Who are? Caleb and Jacob. Caleb and Jacob, yeah. Did I just say Jacob? Caleb and Joshua were the two that said, "Yes, we can do it." How did they know? How did Caleb and Joshua know that they could go into the Promised Land and that those giant Goliath ferocious mean guys weren't gonna stop them? They trusted. Yes, they didn't really know, but they said, we can take a chance that God is with us because he promised. And because they had trust— so there's people who trust him, and there's people who don't trust him. And that was the difference between the 10 and the other 2. Now, we don't know, of course, exactly the percentage that gave and the percentage that don't. But we can look at a much more recent example example, which is when the founders of this church got this idea, hey, let's build a church. Now, I'm not going to tell you the whole story, and Jingquan and others could do a much better job of it. But I took this picture from Paul Lu's office when they had just opened the original building, not this west wing, but the original one that looks like a pentagon, octagon. He said they had 80 people. This morning. I said, Michael, are you in the picture? He said, I was there, but I wasn't in the picture. Maybe because I wasn't a believer yet. He said, Michael told me that when they— what happened? Give me my picture back. They said— by the way, have anyone noticed we have a new projector? You can see a lot better than before, even though we have this light on. So you'll be able to— so thank you to all the deacons that made that happen. So the founding members had— it started out just as a Chinese Bible study. I think it was at UD. I don't want to tell the story because I'm going to get it wrong. But basically, you had a Chinese immigrant community that would meet together. And they said, okay, we got 8 people, 18 people. They got up to 80 people and they said, we're ready to buy some land. And it's a great story. You have to hear it directly from someone who knows it. They put some money together and it was miraculously— they were able to build the building that we are now using. And this church is not like any other. And that's one of the things that I think we need to ask when we're doing any kind of building project. Why not just give the money to some other church? Because there's a lot of other churches that are doing good things too. And so we have to use judgment, what God is motivating our heart to do, and what is it about this church, because it has a unique DNA. It's not just Chinese language, which is down the hall, but it's the Chinese heritage. And what does that look like? See, we lived in China for almost 30 years, depending on how you count. And so I experienced— for me, I have an experience of what that looks like. And I just mentioned, you know, Asian food. That's like one sort of glimpse of it, and that the shape of the architecture of the big arch, that would be just a kind of way to show the heritage. But there's a lot more to it, which we won't get into today, except to say that there's something special here that you don't get at other churches, and that's why the members of this church would be willing to give here instead of to some other church. Now, I'm not even Chinese. I'm Greek, but I have a similar experience, which was the church I grew up in was a Greek church. And if you see, it says on there Bethesda, Maryland. When I was a little guy in the suburbs of Maryland, we lived in DC suburbs, we would drive into the city to go to church, Saint Sophia on Massachusetts Avenue. And my dad realized there were more and more suburbanites from Maryland that were driving into the city, and they were drinking one night, and they said, "Hey, what if we had our own church out in the suburbs? Then we wouldn't have to drive so far, and our kids would have more room to play around." And they had their reasons. Well, that's a long story too, but it's very similar because the community that they created was much more than the building, and it was even more than the religious side of it. The services and the word and the baptisms and the funerals and the weddings. It was also the Greek culture. And funny story about my dad is we were— the thing about Orthodox Church is kind of like Catholic, you could show up at the very end of the service, it didn't matter, it still counts. At least that was my dad's feeling. As long as you made it before the last song and you could light a candle, you could sit in the back row You're good. And then it was social hour, and everybody filed out of the house into the little social hall, and they had coffee and donuts and Greek pastries. Well, we would have a great time eating, and then I would say, "Dad, is it time to go?" "Oh no, there's still a few more people here left to talk to." We were the last ones to get there and the last ones to leave the social hour, because for my dad, that was the church. And sure enough, we raised the money from scratch. My dad was a key part of it. And I can remember trying to go to sleep— I'm 8 years old— looking down in our dining room through my door, and they're smoking and carrying on, all these men arguing over how they're going to raise the money. And I could tell you more stories. I think I will tell you more stories. There's one more about the Greek church, which is they had the idea, and they had a few people who had enough money to have the inkling that they could make it happen. And then my dad was in a dentist office in the waiting room, and he struck up a conversation with this other guy who looked Greek. Well, he was Greek, and he was a farmer in Bethesda, Maryland, who was selling his farm. And long story short, that became the land that they bought. And when the farmer heard that my dad was trying to build this Greek church with these these other guys, he said, I'll let you— he knew they had no money or they didn't have enough, so he spread out the payments. I think it was 3 years with owner financing to make it possible. So that was one little miracle. And the other miracle was the church in DC didn't want them to do it because it's only half hour away, right? And they still had debt because they built this big cathedral-like building. And so the Archbishop who was in New York had to decide. Are we going to approve of a new Greek church? Because it's a denomination, right? Are we going to approve of a new one in the suburbs or not? And they had this big meeting, and my dad tells the story about how first the city church told about how they need to keep it all together and try to convince the archbishop, no, don't do it. And then the Maryland guys made their presentation, and the archbishop finally was ready to make his proclamation. You know, these big robes. Hat and all this jewelry. He says, "I know you city church have your mortgage, but I care more about the children." Because he knew that by having a second church, it was going to create more of this, more stages, right? More containers. And sure enough, that's where I ended up, was right there in that. But we had some great times. Anyway, I'm not going to bore you with any more stories now. This also resonates with me, if you can't tell, because when we were in China, the foreigners' churches were only prescribed, only allowed to use hotel ballrooms. That was it. But I can't really tell the very, very, very, very, very short version, but I will. I have to. This is a warehouse that was right next door to where my company When we moved in, we rented this building and right next door— again, this is the very short version— was a warehouse. And in the warehouse is where we held the church. There's no wares in it. They got rid of the wares and we put in the curtains and it's just one big box. We built the stage in the back and it was a great place for services. And we had both English and later we had Chinese services. And because we had a cooperation with the local Three-Self Church, we were able to have Chinese citizens worshiping with us as well. So I remember once we had a bus that would, because it was also out in the suburbs, it would take people back and forth. And this one guy who didn't know who I was, we were riding the bus into each other, he said, "Yeah, I heard there's this church in a warehouse." I think he called it, you know, anyway, it was great. It shows that God is, Very creative, even more creative than we are. Now, I'm about done and we'll have another song, right? And then communion. But I just want to remind everybody that the fellowship is free. You came here and no one had to go through a gate and buy a ticket, right? Were they charging today? Me? No, that's absurd. The fellowship is free. It's without price. It's just like if you go to your, you know, your uncle's or your aunt's or your cousin's house. They're not going to charge. There is no charge. But this is like a once every so often— here it's like maybe once a decade— that we have a chance to participate. There's no obligation. There's no requirement. There's not even pressure. And I hope you're not feeling that there's any selling going on here. But I do want you to know that you can participate too. We have these pledge forms in the back, and on it it's asking if you would pledge over the next 3 years— don't give any money now— to add to the building fund. If you would, that's great, and if you won't, that's not a problem either. So they're in the back. I just want you to know that. Now, you don't know— this is the new information. You are the first ones to hear this, and I just heard it myself about 2 hours ago. That the pledge amount, which was 88,000 back on October 23rd, as of yesterday is 293,000 that's been pledged. And if you remember, we believe if we have a million or more, we'll be able to build something. It may not be that big, but if it's 1.5 million, we'll be able to build a substantial place. So that is the news. And I, you know, when I got the message from Richard Zhang, our chairman, I told him I'd wanted— that I was doing this message. I would like to be able to update people on how's it going. And so he did. And you know, when I saw that, I just— I felt like there's wind blowing. Did you ever sail in a sailboat? There's nothing worse than being in a sailboat with no wind, and you look up and the sails just doing this, and you're not going anywhere. But when the wind comes, you capture it and the— whoosh— can really do something. So I feel the wind, but you know, it's still a long ways to go. So let's pray, and we will then have another song, okay? Father, we are thankful to be part of your world, your kingdom. And to have so much history that we can relate to about what you've done in various places and how you've motivated different pockets of people, different communities, ethnic communities and otherwise. To respond to the pattern that way back in Exodus to build platforms and, and places where you can dwell, sanctuaries where people, your people, can come together freely without charge and relate on so many levels, the kids and every age. We're thankful that we have so much to learn, but also that we have a chance to respond. And Father, I know that you will accomplish your will, and there's no pressure on me or on any individual. We don't have to do anything, just watch. Watch what you are doing and what you will do. And if not this year, we can do it some other year. But in the meantime, we are thankful and we do trust you and we do praise you. And we do it in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, let's stand. Let's stand, um, and have one more song for reflection, reflecting on something.

Jesus, Jesus, beautiful Savior, God of all majesty. Christi, present King, Lamb of God, Holy and Righteous, Blessed Redeemer, Bright Morning Star. All the heavens shout your praise. All creation bows to worship you. How wonderful! How beautiful, name above every name, exalted high. How wonderful, how beautiful. Jesus, your name, name above every name. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Beautiful Savior, God of all majesty, risen King, Lamb of God, holy and righteous, Blessed Redeemer, bright morning star, all the heavens shout your praise. All creation bows to worship you. How wonderful, how beautiful, name above every name, exalted high, how wonderful, Oh, how beautiful, Jesus, your name, name above every name, Jesus.

I will sing.

And I will sing forever. Jesus, I love you. Jesus, I love you. And I will sing Forever. Jesus, I love you. Jesus, I love you. How wonderful, how beautiful. Name above every name, exalted art. How wonderful, how beautiful, Jesus, your name. Name above every name, Jesus.

You may be seated.

Well, good morning again. I want to say before I forget, we have James Pryor and his wife are here today. They— he is the candidate to be assistant pastor of our English ministry. I guess you could stand up now. Yeah, it's James and Sarah and Titus, Titus and Benjamin. Benjamin is 8 weeks. So James will be doing the sermon next week. It will be part of his candidating process. So he'll also— there's a chance to meet him then. So you don't have to all go back to the back immediately after the service. So our communion is open. That means if you're a Christian, doesn't matter where or when or how you were baptized, we're happy to have fellowship with you. If you'd like to be baptized, ask with me and we can talk about it later. Now, in a minute when the ushers distribute the elements, just hold on to it and we'll take them together. Now, we've been talking about these great times with Moses and God and the great miracles they did, but you're going to find out in a couple of weeks, we're going to hear about how they also had a downfall when they got this golden calf and were worshiping eating this calf while Moses was up on the mountain. Well, after that whole incident passed and God forgave them, Moses, I guess, was feeling a little down or discouraged, and he said, "God, show me your glory," as if he needed a little bit of extra proof like Gideon putting out the fleece. And God responded. He said, "Yes, I will. I will show you all my goodness." I passed before you. But there was a problem. You may not look at me directly. You cannot see my face. Anyone who sees my face will die. That was a problem. God was too bright. It'd be like coming up to the sun and you'd be incinerated if you got too close, right? But God provided Of course, a solution. And we see the solution in many stories, but in this case, he said, "Moses, I will hide you in the crevice of this rock. And as my presence passes by, I will cover you with my hand until I'm past. And you'll only see my back," he said, "not my face." And we know from so many stories that Jesus is the rock, right? He says, 'On this rock I will build my church.' Paul wrote how Jesus was the chief cornerstone of the temple made without hands. And, and we see how in Ephesians 2— yeah, that was in Ephesians 2— so Jesus is the rock that protects us from God's holiness. But finally the moment came when God is going to come by, and as he's going by, he speaks. He says, "I am Yahweh, the God of compassion and mercy. I am slow to anger and filled with unfailing love and faithfulness. I lavish unfailing love to a thousand generations. I forgive iniquity." and rebellion and sin, but I do not excuse the guilty. And how did he react when Moses heard God's voice? It says he quickly bowed his head to the earth and worshiped. And that is where we are at this moment in this service. We encounter God's glory and our spirits are soaring, but we bow The knee. God is demonstrating his glory through his Son Jesus, sharing his own flesh and blood with us, exchanging his life on earth for our life eternal. And now it's time to eat. Will the ushers come forward? Paul writes, Let a person examine himself and then eat of the bread and drink of the cup. So let's do that now.

Lord, hear our confession.

We are unworthy to see your face, but Jesus is our rock. Look on this bread, remember Jesus' body broken for us. Look on this cup, remember Jesus' blood spilled for us. Here we are, protected in the cleft of the rock, giving you worship and glory. At the Last Supper, Remember, Jesus told his disciples, "Do this in remembrance of me." This bread is the body of Jesus the Messiah, who's broken for you. Do this in remembrance of him. This cup is the blood of Jesus poured out for us. Take now in memory of him. Sorry, guys. The story ends when Moses came back down the mountain and he gave the Lord's instructions to the people, and it says his face was glowing. And the people saw the radiance of his face and reflected the glory of God. So that is what we can carry with us. I don't see the light shining on your face, but I see the Lord's Spirit shining in your faces. So let's pray. Father, we have eaten true food, drunk True drink, and we are satisfied. Let us shine with your reflection this month. Let us share your instructions with the people around us. Pray in Jesus' name. Invite Mandy to come forward for corporate prayer, please.

Good morning, brother and sister. Let's bow our head and pray together. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord Jesus, you are mighty God, the Creator, the Healer, and the merciful God. Lord, we thank you for the beautiful church, a place where everyone can come and worship you. We also would like to thank you for brother and sister who are serving you diligently in today's worship. Lord, we thank you for the bread and the cup in the communion this morning. Lord, with humble gratitude, we remember your selfless love and great sacrifice for our sin. Thank you for the gift of salvation and your sacrifice on the cross. Lord, we ask for your forgiveness of our sins, for your healing our disease, and help us to live a life that is pleasing to you so that we will be able to honor you and glorify your name. Lord, please also bless our children, whether— where they are, at home, away in college, at work, or with their family. We would like to lift them up to you and pray for your protection, guidance, and wisdom. Please also seal them from harmways and from infectious disease. We would like to lift up those in need of healing physically, mentally, as well as spiritually. And special prayer for Stephen Lu, continue to recover quickly from his hip pain. And for brothers and sisters who are traveling, to have your protection and safety. We also would like to lift up, uh, our pastor, minister, and church leader to you. We pray that you will give them the wisdom to preach according to your words faithfully, for your will be done. Lord, we ask your guidance for our chosen leadership in discerning your will for the pastoral search interview. We pray that the interview for the fruitful, and that would be provide a suitable assistant pastor for the youth and English ministry. We pray that our English congregation be fruitful and attract more people and non-believers to our church. Also, we would like to lift up the Children's Soup Walk for the children to be fruitful in Jesus' In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

Hello. Michael is in Texas right now, so I am filling in for him for announcements. Are there any new visitors that we can greet and There's like a welcome package that I know that is available. All right. All right, so— oh, sorry. Yeah, you— yeah, media can do that. Yeah, so all the announcements that are going to be discussed today are also available on the website. So it's also here that you can find the bulletins for each Sunday as well as the Scripture reading and all the other information.

Next slide.

So a couple of things happening is MomCo is going to be meeting on November 4th at 6 PM. There's a Song Light Fellowship at November 8th, 4 PM. And then— oh, that's at my house. Okay, at Don's house. So see him for more information. As well as the monthly English ministry prayer group, which is going to be online. Do we have a date for that? Okay, every Wednesday. And then, as was discussed before, is the church is considering about the building project, what form that might take. And so continue to pray on your hearts on in terms of if you are able and what that looks like. Pledge forms are on the back of the table. Is it anonymous?

Is it— Anonymous the way it's designed.

Oh, okay. Okay. And then there's also going to be a blood drive here on the 13th of December at 9:00 in the morning. One benefit of donating blood in addition to helping people is that they can tell you your your blood type, which is not commonly done in normal blood work, which I came to realize. And then in addition, there's also going to be old glasses, eyeglass collections going to be made. So please, if you have brought any old eyeglasses or old prescriptions that you aren't using anymore, please go to the lobby and donate those. Next slide. Is there anything after that? Okay, I guess not. Oh, okay. In it, also there's going to be, now that we're in November, right, it's the Thanksgiving season, and so there's multiple kinds of food drives for underserved or underprivileged individuals. And so, specifically for the government shutdown as well as especially because we're going into the Thanksgiving season, if you have any kinds of non-perishable food items that can be donated, whether it be canned, whole grains, those, you know, dried pasta, et cetera, or personal care items, there's also gonna be a donation box in the lobby up until pretty much Thanksgiving. Anything else?

All right.

And everyone please stand for the doxology. That's right, I stay up here.

creatures here below. Praise him above the heavenly host. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.

Remain standing. 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. Pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Go in peace.