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Good morning, everyone. Welcome to this morning's worship. In Jesus' name, now we start today's worship. First, belated Happy New Year to everyone. At the beginning of the new year, I know many people have a new goal to achieve in 2026, but I'd like to remind everyone as a new man created in Christ. As Lamentations chapter 3, verse 2 says, "Every morning is a new beginning." Therefore, I will say All what we should do and can do is today should be better than yesterday. Agree? I like to watch videos. I spend many hours a day, especially the pictures. Showing in a vast desert, you cannot see the end, a winding inland river. And in its path, you can see a green ribbon where trees and crops line its bank. As plants need air, sunlight, and water to grow, so let our spirits need the Word of God to grow. Psalm chapter 1, verse 3 says, Let's— I will read it, okay? A righteous person— the person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever they do prospers. Let's pray. Father, we thank you. Thank you for your righteousness and your mercifulness. Through Jesus Christ, you gave us a new life so that everyone, every day, we can learn to live a Christ-centered life. Your words nourish us. Every time we open the Bible, you are there to teach us something. We thank you. In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

All right, good morning everyone. Could you all please rise and join us as we worship? So this first song is a new song for many of you. It's just been on my heart recently and I thought it fit quite well with the sermon for today as we are leaning into what Scripture says is always, but the very basis of what gives Scripture its authority, what means, makes it authoritative in our lives and have meaning, is the one behind it all, right? It's God's word. And in order for Scripture to have an impact on us, we must trust it. We must trust that God is true to his word. Thus, I hope we can sing this song and just take the, the words to heart. Even if you don't know it, I pray, I hope that you can sing along and We'll be singing more of it, hopefully, if you all connect with it. We sing your word.

Your word is a lamp unto my feet. Your way is the only way for me. It's a narrow road that leads to life, but I want to be on it. It's a narrow road, but the mercy is wide. 'Cause you're good on your promise. I'll take you at your word. You said it, I'll believe it. I've seen how good it works. If you started, you'll complete it. I'll take you at your word. Sing you spoke, you spoke, in the chaos, very alive. I know, 'cause I've seen it in my life. It's a narrow road, That leads to life, but I wanna be on it. It's a narrow road and the tide is high, but you parted the water. I'll take you at your word. If you said it, I will believe it. I said I hope Kahuni works. You started it, you'll complete it. I'll take you at your word. You said it, I'll believe it. I've seen how good it works. You started it, you'll complete it. I'll take you at your word. would never forget or forsake me. You said I'm saved, you call me yours, you said my future's full of your hope. You've never failed, so I know that you'll never fail me. Sing that again. You said your love I will never give up. You said your grace is always enough. You said your heart would never forget or forsake me. You said I'm saved. You call me yours. You said my future is full of your hope. You've never failed, so I know that you'll never fail me. I'll take you as I'll take you at your word. If you said it, I'll believe it. I've seen how good it works. You start it, you'll complete it. I'll take you at your word. If you said it, I'll believe it. I've seen how good it works. If you started, you'll complete it. I'll take you at your word. Take you at your word. And sinfulness, he rose again victorious. Faithfulness none can deny through the storm. Through the fire, there is truth that sets me free. Jesus Christ who lives in me. You are stronger, you are stronger. Sin is broken, you have saved me. It is written, Christ is risen. Jesus, you are Lord of all. No beginning and no end. You're my hope and my defense. You came to seek and save the lost. You paid it all upon the cross. You are stronger. You are stronger. Sin is broken. Broken, you have saved me. It is written, Christ is risen. Jesus, you are Lord of all. be lifted higher! So let your name be lifted higher! Be lifted higher! Be lifted higher! So let your name be lifted higher! Be lifted higher! Be lifted higher! You are stronger than any enemy. You are stronger. Sin is broken. You have saved me. It is written. Christ is risen. Jesus, you are Lord of all. You are stronger. You are stronger. Sin is broken. You have saved me. Saved me. It is written, Christ is risen. Jesus, you are Lord of all.

Lord, we thank you that it is indeed written that our Lord Savior Jesus Christ is risen from the grave, that he has defeated death and therefore has made us right with you, Lord. He's won for us atonement. He's won for us life everlasting. So Lord, help us this morning to grasp that promise, to trust your word, to trust the finished work that was done for us on that cross. Thank you that you're willing to save us. Thank you that you're willing to dwell among us with your Spirit, Lord. But again, we would ask that you would help us to trust your word when you promise us these things, because how often does our— do our hearts assail us? How often do our minds lie to us and say that we aren't forgiven, that say that we're not enough for you, Lord. Lord, there's some truth in that, because indeed, if we were trying to make it by our own strength, of course we would not be enough. But thank you once again that you've contributed your very Son in our place, and that he, he is enough. By his blood, by his righteousness, he is enough.

Enough.

Help us grasp that this morning, Lord. In Jesus' name, amen. Before you're seated, could you please take a few minutes and just greet those around you?

Please all rise. We read today's—

Oh, it's right?

Yeah, okay.

Yeah.

Okay, let's read together. Let's read it. Okay, we know where it is. And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, Returned from the desert and was in the wilderness for 40 days, being tempted by the evil one. And he ate nothing during those days, and when he lay and he was hungry, the devil said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread." And Jesus answered him, It is written, man shall not die alone. In the moment of life, and said to him, to you I will give all his authority and the glory, for it has been delivered to Give it to me, and I'll give it to whom I will. If you bend, worship, it will all be yours. And Jesus answered him, it's written, you shall worship the Lord, shall be served. And he took him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and He said, "For it is written, 'He will command his angels concerning to guard you, and on their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.'" And Jesus answered him, "It is written, 'You shall not put the Lord your God to be tested.'" Yeah, amen. Please be seated.

You may be seated. Yeah, I'm afraid we might have put the Lord to the test with that reading. We are starting a new series this, this year. It's called Luke the Invisible, or God's Invisible Nation. If you remember, we were in Acts Exodus for the whole fall season, talking about how a new nation was formed. We called it Birth of a Nation. And what we're going to see is that the visible nation that was on earth in Israel, located in the Middle East, is now like a paradigm or an example or a lot of principles that we now have in an invisible kingdom. It was called Israel, and now it is the, the New Israel or the Kingdom of God. We don't really call it that very often. Or think of it that way, but it's here and it's now. But because it's invisible, we need to keep talking about it. So today we are looking at a passage where Jesus comes out a winner, and he uses this technique, or he uses a principle, or uses a method that we just read, if you heard it through the cacophony, a refrain. 3 times he says, "It is written. In fact, it was even in one of the songs. Jonathan's always very good about picking songs that will be appropriate for the message. I appreciate that. And the music's very great today. So he quotes from the Scripture. Now, you wouldn't think he would need to do that. You would think he had it very much internalized. But it's kind of like his secret sauce or secret weapon, if he will. And we have to wonder, are we able to do the same? And how can we do that? And as the story starts, we found that Jesus was hungry after 40 days without eating. And he looked at that stone. Now the devil, I don't suppose he appeared with horns and a red costume on, otherwise Jesus would have seen right away or seen through him right away. And there's all kinds of artists that have tried to paint this, but presumably it's just like a man who found him, stumbled on him in the wilderness. That the devil, when he was talking to Him, appeared to be like a man saying, "Oh, I heard, you know, You're the Son of God, right? Why don't You— if You're hungry, why don't You turn these stones into bread?" And He might have thought, "Why not? I mean, the 7-Eleven is a little too far away to get there very quickly." But no, He decided to wait, and we're going to see exactly why, but He uses the first His first principle, which is to pause and to not act hastily. And when he paused, it's like he looked through this special scope into the recesses of his mind where he had stored the scriptures. And that's why he was able to say, "It is written," because he had them all right there where he could find them. And when we, uh, go to all those Sunday school classes and all those Bible studies and all those Sunday mornings, we are storing up for ourselves, if you will, like the vocabulary or a map of what is written. And in fact, we even have a better than— Jesus only had the Old Testament scriptures. Ours are like double-barreled. We've got the Old Testament view and we've got the New Testament view, kind of like two different ways of looking at it. And if you have ever looked through one eye or two eyes, what do you get? With two eyes, you get depth perception. And that's why we understand God even better now in New Testament times than they did in Old Testament times. Now, when we're thinking, just now as I say, Old and New Testament, we find Jesus tempted by the devil in the New Testament. Who can tell me something that happened in the Old Testament that was similar? Don't be shy. What happened in the Old Testament that maybe sheds light on this temptation of Jesus because it was similar? Who was tempted by the devil in the Old Testament? Yes, Adam and Eve. I'm glad you put Adam in there because he's also— it says he was there with her. So we always tend to blame Eve first, don't we? Yes, that just as the devil tempted Jesus, he was also doing that right from the beginning, but Unlike Jesus, Eve lost that contest, didn't she? And in a minute we're gonna compare how— what Jesus did with what Eve did, and it'll give us that full view of what's happened and therefore maybe more understanding for us if we're trying to do the same. Now there's a problem, and that is the same problem you get if you try to look at a $100 bill and tell if it's real or counterfeit. So I want a show of hands, how many people have ever held a counterfeit $100 bill in your hands? Have you ever touched, looked at a counterfeit $100 bill knowingly? Is it easy to tell the difference? It isn't. They're very, very similar. And so you might even need like special equipment if you're not fully trained to be able to tell one from the other. And that's why when you look at the scriptures or we're comparing them, we have to use our head. We have to think it through. We We have to talk it through. And so we're going to look briefly at what happened. And you all know this story that the serpent asked Eve. He didn't say, "Look, here's this fruit." That wasn't his first step. His first step was, "What did God say?" And the woman said, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it lest you die.'" So we should praise Eve, right? She quoted God's Word at that time, which is very, very brief. She did say, "It is written." So Jesus said, "It is written." Eve said, "It is written." Good job, right? But, uh-uh, what happened? Did you notice what she did wrong? Let's look back at what was the Word of God at that time. This had been given to Adam just a few verses earlier in the previous chapter. It says, "You may freely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of of good and evil, you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it, you shall die. That is the original, the Word of God, the Scripture. But how does she— what does she say? What is the difference? Did you notice? And I've underlined and bolded the differences. God had said, you may freely eat of every tree. She says, we may eat of the trees. What's the difference? She left out the word "freely" and the word "every." Okay, a little, just a minor difference, but she left something out, didn't she? And then when God had said, "You shall surely die," at the end of her quote, she says, "Lest you die." Now, "lest" is a kind of Middle English or old form, but it means "if perhaps" or "maybe." 'Or we might die if we do it.' It's not the same as 'you shall surely.' It's a different grammatical structure, a different translation. So that— she changes it just a little. And what about this thing she said, 'Nor shall you touch it'? Was that in God's Word? She added those— that whole phrase. She just totally added that in there. I remember when the first time I heard this, I was like, say 17 years old, I was like blinking. I just couldn't believe that she could get it so off just from, you know, in a few verses later. It might have been the same day or the next day or very soon after. Now, some people think she just made it up. But some people think it was Adam's idea. That Adam got the word, don't eat it. And so when Adam passed it on to Eve, he said, don't eat it. Better not to even touch it. So Adam added this thing to help his wife get it right by adding this additional layer. So we don't need to analyze it except to say that she removed something, she changed something, and she added something. So what she ended up with was similar to the word, but it was a little off. And sure enough, disaster followed. So here is Jesus, he's not gonna do it that way. So he knows that story, and so when he says— when he's thinking it through, he's going to think about what does God say about bread, and he's going to take his time and find the most appropriate passage, because bread is mentioned more than once in the scripture. And I want to give a little bit of context, because if you look, remember in the original Bible there's no chapter markings. So chapter 3 and chapter 4 just run right together. And if you look at the end of chapter 3, what had just happened? Before Jesus went into the wilderness, he had been baptized. And when he was baptized, something very special happened. And God spoke to him right out of the sky. A voice came from heaven saying, "You are my beloved Son. With you I am well pleased." And how do you think Jesus felt at that moment? He had gone through this whole upbringing and he'd figured out that he was the Messiah, or he thought he might be. And then, we don't know, of course, if God had never spoke to him previously, but at least from what's recorded, God speaks audibly and Jesus hears that, "I am. I am the Son of God." And God's, please, wow, it must have bust all the buttons on his coat, right? If he had buttons. So he goes from there into the wilderness. And so he's feeling he's on a high. And so here comes the temptation. You can just command these. You're the Son of God now, right? You can command this stone to become bread. Why not? And so that's the context. But Jesus takes a minute to think it through. Through, and he remembers. Which story do you think he remembers? It was a story in the wilderness of the children of Israel being fed manna. And when they're fed manna, it explains later in Deuteronomy 8, Moses said— I'm looking at the second paragraph now— that God humbled you and let you hunger. He fed you with manna. Why? That he might make you know That man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of God. So as Jesus is thinking through the scriptures, the stories, he comes upon this one, and he says, yes, that's it. And he speaks it out, saying, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. And so he bats down that temptation. He wins that battle, but the devil doesn't give up, doesn't give up. And the devil took him and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time and said to him, "To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I will give it to whomever I will. If you then will worship me, it will all be yours." I was so delighted when I found this picture because it even has the Great Wall of China, I thought to myself, was the wall even existing? Yep, it was built before Christ. And so is the Parthenon, and so are the pyramids. All the kingdoms of the world. Now wait a minute, I heard that Jesus is King of Kings, so how come the devil was able to give him this authority? And the answer, of course, is Jesus is King of Kings now, but he wasn't at that time. He was destined to be. The angel had told Mary, remember, this baby will grow up to be the king, and his reign shall go on forever and ever. But it hadn't happened yet. So what is the temptation here? Jesus knew he was king, or he was going to be king, but he wasn't yet. So the temptation is the devil is saying what? I'll give you the kingship right away. You don't have to suffer. You don't have to be crucified. You can just— it's just like getting to 7-Eleven. You don't have to go to 7-Eleven now. You don't even have to go through your life. I'll just give you the prize right away. Isn't that better? But what did Jesus remember? He remembered another story. It's also from the time of the temptations in the wilderness. It said, "When the Lord brings you into the land, take care lest you forget Him." It is the Lord your God you shall fear, him you shall serve, and by his name you shall swear. This memory, or this memory from the Scripture, came back to Jesus and it armed him, it strengthened, fortified him with an answer. And therefore he was able to make that quote and follow up saying, it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God. And Him only you shall serve. So He was on top of it, and He still passed through this second temptation. Well, then the devil still didn't give up. He took Jesus to Jerusalem and set Him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to Him, 'If you are the Son of God,' or 'since you're the Son of God,' right? It just came out of heaven, the voice did. 'Throw yourself down from here.' Now we just read through, you know, we'll just read through the Bible and we'll just keep right on going without stopping to think. What fun is that? Why? I can see why food is tempting and I can see why getting out of suffering and getting— that would be tempting. But why is it tempting to jump off a temple? What's so fun about that? Any thoughts? It doesn't quite make sense, does it? Stacy? Oh, Matthew has an idea. You could fly. Absolutely. I don't know, have you ever considered it would be nice to be able to fly? I don't know if Jesus thought it would be nice to fly, but I do think there's one thing that Jesus would have liked to jump off the temple. You see all the people down there? You can see that if people watched him fly or jump off the temple and land without getting hurt, what would they say? It's a sign. This is the Messiah. It would prove that he was— he was who he said he was. And guess what? Then he wouldn't have to teach them all those things. He wouldn't have to answer all those questions. He wouldn't have to put up with all of the trouble they were going to give him. Because He could have proved it. He wouldn't have to do, you know, reason with them. Wouldn't that be great? And now, interestingly, the devil goes on to say, "It is written." The devil is so clever. Have you ever heard the phrase, "Even the devil can quote Scripture"? Have you heard that before? So when someone quotes the Scripture, you just can't, you know, bow down before. You got to think. Even the devil can quote it. So the devil here quotes the Scripture saying— and this is from Psalm 91, "He will command His angels concerning you to guard you, and on their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone." See, go ahead, get the glory, prove who you are, and the angels will protect you. It's all good. Even it is written. So the devil's even helping him along. I know you're going to say, "It is written," so I'll provide the reference for you. So clever. But what does Jesus do? He keeps thinking. He says, "Timeout." And he's thinking, well, OK, it does say that, but it says a few other things too. And he quotes from Deuteronomy 6, "When the Lord your God brings you into the land, you shall not put your Lord God to the test as you tested him at Massah." Well, what happened at Massah? And I put the other code here so you could see it. The people thirsted there for water. This is again in the wilderness when they're wandering around. They didn't have any homes or wells to drink from, and they were thirsty. And the people grumbled against Moses and said, "Why did you bring us up out of Egypt? Did you want to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?" They were really upset. They were even thinking, we ought to have— we ought to go back. And so that was the kind of test that they went through. And so Jesus answered, and knowing that this was an appropriate scripture for his situation, he wasn't going back, that he would say to answer it, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test. And so there we see how he— the scripture in his mind gave him confidence to resist these 3 times. And so from that we learn a few things. We learn that when we first face this temptation, we should pause, not act right away. And we could kind of look through our binoculars. We can look onto a spiritual plane and wonder, what is written about this? And then we can wrestle with it a little bit, thinking in our mind, how will that apply to my situation in order to pick the most appropriate verse or verses that help us to come to a solution. So that is the third temptation. And he would— didn't get glory right away because he didn't jump down from the temple. But what happened later, because he obeyed, he was crucified, but God raised him from the dead. And in Philippians 2, Paul writes this beautiful summary of where Jesus is now, saying, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above all names, above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and even under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of the Father. If he had jumped off that day, he might have had some applause for a moment. But he chose to wait for God to give him glory, and that in turn glorified God. So that is one of the things in our temptation. We're kind of choosing a lot of times between satisfying our own desire. But once we think about, well, what's in it for God, or we care about him, or we want him to receive receive glory, it helps to strengthen us for that situation. Now James kind of puts this together. He says, "So humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." And that's what happens after these three temptations when finally Jesus shuts him down. And it says, "The devil went away." He gave up finally. He was going to come back another day, but that was it. Jesus won the victory. And so we have to resist. I was reminded of my son when he was about maybe 3 months old, or no, he must have been about 5 months old because we were starting to feed him solid food. Was he 6 months? Stacy will correct me on that. And I would, I didn't, wasn't able to breastfeed him, but when he was 5 months old, I could start feeding him, right? So we would have prepared the peas and the carrots or whatever, and I would stick the spoon in his mouth and he would spit it out. Oh, Stacy, we got to feed him something else because he doesn't like this one. And she was like, no, we're not going to do— make anything else. So I put it in again and he spit it out again. But guess what? The third time I put it in, he ate it because I didn't give up. He, he did finally. I resisted his will to not to be too picky of an eater. For my wife's sake, because she'd already made peas and carrots. And sure enough, he ate it. So this is the question now that I want to ask. And I'm done. There's 3 temptations, 3 points. We're all finished. We understand the keys to fighting off temptation. But the question I have is, what temptation are we facing? I mean, have you met the devil in the wilderness? I don't see I don't see any hands. I'm not anticipating any. So what sort of temptations do we face? Well, I know there's those little ones, like when you wake up in the morning and you want to hit the snooze for the 14th time. That's a temptation. Or you should go to bed, but you want another glass of ice cream. That's a temptation. Those are the little ones, but then there's much bigger or more important ones. So I'm not going to talk about any little ones, but I did want to mention Just one. I had a hard time picking which one, but I chose adultery because there was a famous Chinese— not Chinese— famous Christian author this week who confessed to having had an 8-year affair. Philip Yancey is his name. He had sold like 16 million books, and anyway, long story short, that is the situation that I was thinking about, and I thought, If you are ever tempted in the area of adultery, you could think, "It is written, thou shalt not commit adultery," right? Is that enough though? Because you already know that, maybe that doesn't have enough to it. So you could go on thinking that in the 10th Commandment when it says, "Do not covet," it says, "Don't even think about committing, don't even think about your neighbor's wife." Not only don't do anything, don't even think about it. Remember, and you might go on to think, "It is written." Remember that story about David who had everything going for him and all the talent that God had given him, and yet what happened with Bathsheba? Or you might remember Proverbs 5, this great chapter, and I'm reading from it. It says, "The lips of a forbidden woman." drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil. But in the end she is bitter; her feet go down to death. This applies to men and women, of course, but that's— it just had to pick one in the scriptures. And so that's very descriptive, isn't it? So that's kind of what we don't want to do. But in a temptation, it's often good to think about what What do we want to do? It's always don't, don't, don't. It's also what do we want to do and what can we do? We can pray, but we can also work on our marriage. I mean, this of course applies only if you're married. You can work on the relationship. So if there's something unsatisfying that's causing— that's opening the opportunity to look elsewhere, maybe you could pay attention to the one by your side. And Proverbs 5 goes on. To say a few verses later, "Rejoice with the wife of your youth." So if you're not rejoicing in the marriage, maybe you could spice it up a little bit and get some help. You know, there's all kinds of resources, but I'm here if you want whatever advice I could offer. I'd probably send you to a professional if you need it. And it goes on in the next verse to say, "Let her breasts fill you." at all times with delight and be intoxicated always in her love. So we're well equipped. The scriptures really equip us both on the negative side and on the positive side to face down the temptations which are so self-destructive. It's not just hurting others, it's hurting ourselves. So I will stop there, and if you want to talk about any other sorts of bigger temptations that you're facing, I'm available all during the week by— in person, by phone, by Zoom, in confidence to talk through those with you. When we do anything, we can have those like two eyes. I like this picture because it's like a night vision goggles in with the binoculars. They're all in this one piece of equipment. We're trying to keep one eye on the world, what's happening, and then one eye on the spiritual level of what's going on and find spiritual insight to help us in every way. Let's pray. Father, we are thankful that your word is so rich, but it's also very challenging. And we know, even though we don't face the devil face to face, that we do face temptations. And we know things are self-destructive, and we, we sometimes tend to even do those to our own hurt and the hurt of those that we're responsible for. So Father, I ask, we do ask for help. Uh, we ask to help us understand the scriptures so when we wonder how is it written, that we can find the place, that we can apply the right part or the right story that really will help us to overcome. Thank you for the promise that as we resist that he will flee. I'm very thankful for this congregation, for the times that we get to spend together, not just at 9:30 but in our Sunday schools and the— and during the week on Friday night in our prayer circle, to be accountable to each other and to not, not have a mask on, but to really be there for each other like the spiritual family that we are. And finally, I just ask for any who are struggling right now that you remember them, that you give them extra insight and touch them and let them know that you're not there to bang them over the head or to find fault, but you're there to show mercy and love like you did to that woman caught in adultery, and to say, 'Neither do I condemn you,' but also to follow with saying, 'Go and sin no more.' We thank you, Lord, in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Okay, could you all please rise and join us as we prepare our hearts to, uh, partake in communion.

I take the bread of life, broken for all my sins, your body crucified to make me whole again. I will recall the cup poured out in sacrifice to trade this sinner's end for your new covenant. Hallelujah! Hallelujah, now I live my life in remembrance. Hallelujah, your promise I won't forget. I'll walk salvation's road with fear and trembling. Your way, born as my own, as Christ is formed in me. Hallelujah, and I'll live my life in remembrance. Hallelujah, your promise I won't forget. <LYRICS>If ever I should lose my way, if ever I deny your grace, remind me of the price you paid. Hallelujah, I'll live in remembrance.</LYRICS> Good to me. You've been so, so good to me. No, just think where I would be if not for you. If not for you, you've been so, so You've been so, so good to me. Oh, to think where I would be if not for you, if not for you. You've been so, so good to me. You've been so, so good to me. Oh, to think where I would be if not for you, if not for you. As far as heights, As far as eyes reach from the depths, as far as east is from the west, so far your grace has carried me. Until I see you face to face, until at last I've won my race, remind me you're not finished yet. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, I live in remembrance. You may be seated.

Thank you, Jonathan. That was beautiful. In Luke chapter 1, doesn't start with a story of Jesus, it starts with a man and his wife, Zechariah and Elizabeth. They were an older couple and it says they were righteous before God, but they had no children because Elizabeth was barren and they were advanced in in years. Now Zechariah was chosen. He was a priest. He was chosen by lot to enter into the temple of the Lord and burn incense. He was the only one in this holiest part of the temple burning incense by the altar when something unusual happened. So unusual that even the crowd outside knew because it took a long time, much longer than usual for for it to all happen. An angel of the Lord appeared to him at the right side of the altar. And Zechariah, how do you think he felt about that? Ooh, cool, an angel? No, he was scared out of his wits.

Why?

Not just because it was unusual, but because he He felt suddenly aware of his shortcomings. Remember, in almost each time we do communion, I try to find something in the Scripture where there's an encounter with God, like when Isaiah, he sees this vision of the temple, and what does he do? He says, "Woe is me, because I have unclean lips." Remember, I remember that in the context of Zechariah. I think he may have even thought of, oh, I have unclean lips too. There is a problem. But bless his heart, that angel has a solution. He immediately says, "A son is given." That's what's coming with Jesus, but this is how he says it. He says, "Don't be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will call his name John. And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth." For he will be great before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make the people ready for the Messiah, the Lord. Wow, what great news, right? Zechariah must be overwhelmed with Gratitude, excited. But no. What was wrong with Zechariah? It's kind of like when Abraham and Sarah first heard they were gonna have a baby in their old age. What did they do? They laughed, right? They're like, ha ha ha, give me a break, right? And so this is kind That's kind of the reaction of Zechariah. He says, "How am I going to—" Look at the face on this picture. I had to look good and hard to find a face of Zechariah that matched the situation.

"How?

Come on. What? I'm old. My wife is old." And the angel answered, "I'm Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God with this good news, and you don't believe it." Behold, you will be unable to speak until the day that these things take place. So he gives him a little spanking, doesn't he? He makes him mute for a while. And the people waited for Zacharias outside, and they marveled that he tarried so long in the temple. And when he came out, he couldn't speak to them. But they could tell, they perceived that he had seen a vision in the temple, for he beckoned to them. I'd love to see like some actor, some mime to try to come up with beckoning or pantomiming what happened and how would you pantomime an angel speaking to him. And then this is where I'm headed finally with this moment. Where I just love the expression. He goes back to Elizabeth and says— can you imagine him pantomiming, "We're going to have a baby"? Right? And she's going— she's having that same reaction of laughter, "What are you talking about?" And, "How come you can't talk? Why is all this pain?" Pantomime. Somehow he got the word across and they were intimate and they got pregnant. And what I want to point at isn't the physical part of what brought them together, but they're in on something very special about what was— God was doing with— well, with the whole world, but with Zechariah and Elizabeth. And after she got pregnant and how, what that did for their life. I remember my wife and I getting pregnant after many, many, many, many years. That's another story we'll talk about another time. But when she was pregnant, that you just feel different, right? You parents that have kids, before you got pregnant and after you got pregnant, it just changes everything. It's very special. And so I want to draw a parallel and say in a way we're pregnant. It seems my wife is very— she always reminds me what crazy comparisons I make. Communion is not like getting pregnant. It's nothing like it at all. But in a way what's the same about it is that through this intimacy some fruit will be born. Something new will come of it. And life will be birthed right here in this church. We will have new life and experience that because of what we do together. So this is where we are. And there was another moment— I won't— we're doing okay on the time. It's when Elizabeth was pregnant and then Mary shows up and she's pregnant too with a special baby. And here there's another kind of intimacy between the sisters— they were cousins— where they both are experiencing something very special that God is doing. And that kind of mirrors what happens when we get together in the church and we see what God is doing among us. So God is inviting us to celebrate this meal. So finally, will the ushers come forward? Because we are going to partake of this special meal. And Paul writes in, uh, he says, "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're unable to have spiritual children by ourselves, but you have put your spirit in us and enabled us to be fruitful. We know we're unworthy, and so we ask, Lord, look on this bread and remember Jesus Jesus' body was broken for us. And look on this cup. Remember, Jesus' blood was spilled for us. In his name, we thank you for the forgiveness that now makes us worthy to be in your presence and enjoy this meal. At the Last Supper, Jesus told his disciples, Do this in remembrance of me. This bread is the body of Jesus broken for us. Eat it now in memory of him. This cup is the blood of Jesus. Drink it now in memory of him. The time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son. All the neighbors gathered around. They wanted to know, "What are you going to name the baby? Are you going to name him Zechariah after his father?" Elizabeth said, "No, we'll call him John." And they all thought, "Zechariah is not going to like that." So they asked the father, who was still mute, What will be his name? And Zechariah asked for a tablet, and he wrote, his name is John. And when he did that, immediately his mouth was open, and he began to prophesy, saying, blessed is the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people. Paul Nettler. I'm going to ask Paul Condrell to come up and do a corporate prayer as we wind up our communion.

Let us corporately come before his presence with thanksgiving and into his courts with Praise. Let's pray. Today is Communion Sunday. We remember your body, Lord, broken. Remember your blood, Lord, shed. And on the cross you said, "It is finished." Our access to you is a done deal. Thank you, Lord, for the installation of the WCEC staff, Ching Lee, David, James, Paul, and Paul. Bless them. Enable them to lead and shepherd Your flock. We thank You for the elders and the deacons. We ask Your guidance for them to be able to fulfill their duties. We ask that You bless the congregation as they support the staff, the elders, and the deacons. We thank You for all of the volunteers that tirelessly work throughout the year, be it as emcee or leading worship or in awana or in any capacity. Lord, we ask that all of these people, that the congregation and the volunteers support each other as well, support our community and support all of the missionaries at WCEC supports. Lord, we ask for your touch on all of the physical requirements of everybody, the emotional requirements of everybody. We ask especially today to lift up Julieta's father, Roberto. He's on the donor's list waiting for an organ. We ask that You bless all of those that have recently found jobs and are adjusting to them, those that are looking for new employment. We ask that You bless our youth as they go off to college, to wherever they are. We thank You for those that have been baptized here. We praise You for those that You will be bringing to us to be baptized. We thank you for all of our students, no matter at what stage, even Pastor Paul as he finishes his master's. We thank you for newcomers to this church: Michael, Sarah, Dean, Jonathan, Eber, Kathleen, Peter, Esther. We thank you for the visitors this morning. Cindy from Taiwan, thank you for being here, and the others that will be introducing themselves in a few minutes. May they all see Your love here at work at WCEC. We thank You, Lord, for the success of the building project and ask for Your continued guidance. We thank You for the upcoming events, the youth retreat in January, the WCEC leadership meeting in January. We pray for our country, Lord. A lot of turmoil here, but there's a lot of revival going on. Have all of us— remind us to always keep You first. We pray for other countries, the turmoil in Venezuela right now. We pray for Israel, Ukraine, Russia, China, Iran, Europe, Asia, all of those people being persecuted in Nigeria. We lift up the world to You. We pray for Your Kingdom, that it on earth might be as it is in heaven. Put peace in our hearts as we navigate our daily lives, knowing that you are always with us. Your love is the same, unchangeable, unconditional, and complete. We offer this praise and thanksgiving in your name, Lord. Amen. Amen.

All right. First thing I'd like to ask if there are any new visitors here for today, first-time attendees. We'd like to give you a little gift. You could raise your hand if you're a first-time person here. Okay. All right, well, next slide. We're going to talk about some of the upcoming events. And if you have any questions or need any details, please visit our website, the wecc.churchcenter.com. All right, next slide. So we're asking for additional greeters. Those are the people that will stay in the hallway or just be here to help people find our place and also to greet new attendees. So if your heart is pulled by God to help us with that hospitality, please see me, Michael, or Paul, and we will get you oriented in how we like to run the greeting. Momco is January 13th. The EM prayer circle is meeting every Wednesday. It is online, so if you do have time, Please seek out the invitation to join that. You can also go to the website to get the link. WCC expansion has already reached over $1 million in pledges. We are extending the amount of time looking for these pledges to see if we can get to the $1.5 million, which would be enough to fund the large building that we were looking at. The Salt Lake Fellowship will be meeting January 31st. It meets here in the lounge downstairs. Oh, that will—

on the 31st, we'll be meeting at Henry and Mandy's.

Okay, so we'll be meeting at Henry and Mandy's house. If you would like to attend that and don't know the address, just talk to Don, myself, or any of the leaders here. And the WhatsApp that we use to communicate in our groups. If you want to be a part of that, um, team or part of the, uh, people to get those, uh, alerts, you know, seek us out and we will help get you invited to that. All right, let's rise for doxology. Oh yes. Oh wait, doxology. Oh yeah. So, uh, yeah, real quickly, um, for the adult Sunday school downstairs, uh, in the beginning of the fellowship time, we will take a moment to, uh, volunteer for helping some of the cleaning up the Christmas decorations and packing them away. And then we'll see how much time we have for the remaining of that time period. All right, let's raise— let's rise for the doxology.

This is Paul. Praise him, all creatures here below. Praise him above the heavens. Praise Paul, son of Cephas. Would you pray with me? Lord, would you bless us as we go forth this week? Lord, may we delight ourselves in your word as we seek what is true, God, and look into Scripture.

Lord, Lord, that we would be able to respond to the devil's lies this week with 'it is written.' And Lord, may you reveal your word to us, Lord, that it would be a light to us, Lord, and a path to us, Lord. For, Lord, what is true and what is good. Lord, may you bless us as we pursue you.

I pray these things in your name.

Amen. You're dismissed. Thank you for coming. Please help with the decorations.