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Looks like I'm on for welcoming you this morning. So welcome, nice to see you. Did you hear that music? What does that mean? Season is upon us. Who has dressed themselves in green or red garments today? Would you please stand up if you have green or red garments? Yes, excellent. We're going to be talking a little bit about garments today because the priests were given special garments. So now you have special garments for the holiday season. Now I see one John Deere sweater. Did you know that that was green? Did you choose that on purpose today? Tell the truth. He just smiles. No, if you don't say anything, then it can't be the truth, right? Well, it's great to see everyone, and we have a lot in store for you today. Some great music, a message, and communion. So let's do that and let's get started. Father, we're thankful for your people, for gathering together on a regular basis as you have ordained, a day of rest and a day to live, a day to remember you, and in this Sunday to also do a communion service where we can experience the bread and the cup and remember that for centuries they had to go through all kinds of sacrifices of animals and spilling blood on the altar and— but what Jesus did for us was done once and for all, that he paid with his life But with that, he gave us access to you and access to each other so that we can be in a family as you've designed it. Thank you for raising Jesus from the dead, for proving him to be your son, and that we— those of us that are willing— will pay attention and delight in the knowledge of Jesus and in his word. Ask you to bless our time together and the music that we will enjoy. Let us worship in Jesus' name.

Amen. Okay, good morning everyone. Could you all please rise and join us as we sing joyfully this morning?

Come let us.

Come let us worship our King. Come let us bow at his feet. He has done great things. See what our Savior has done. See how his love overcomes. He has done great things. He has done great things. Oh, oh, hero of heaven, you conquer the grave. You free every captive and break every chain. Oh God. You have done great things. We dance in your freedom. Awake and alive. Oh, Jesus, our Savior, your name lifted high. Oh God, you have done great things. You've been faithful through every storm. You'll be faithful forevermore. You have done great things, and I know you will do it again, for your promise is yes and amen. You will do great things. God, you do great things. Oh, oh, hero, oh, hero of heaven, you You conquered the grave. You free every captive and break every chain. Oh God, you have done great things. We dance in your freedom, awakening life. Oh Jesus, our Savior, your name lifted high. Oh God, you have done great things. Sing hallelujah above it all.

Hallelujah.

Hallelujah, God above it all. Hallelujah, God unshakeable. Hallelujah, you have done great things. Sing hallelujah. Hallelujah, God above it all. Hallelujah, God unshakeable. Hallelujah, you have done You've done great things. You've done great things. Oh, hero. Oh, hero of heaven. You conquered the grave. You free every captive and break every chain. Oh God, you have done great things. We dance in your freedom, awakened alive. Oh Jesus, our Savior, your name lifted high. Oh God, you are You have done great things. You have done great things. Oh God, you do great things.

As we are now in the Advent season, next song I know you'll all be familiar with. Just as we sing about of it, would we just reflect on the hope that we have in Christ and the peace that we can experience in him, both in his birth and in his kingdom to come.

Oh, come Emmanuel and ransom captive Israel. The mourners in lonely exile hear until the Son of God appears. Rejoice, rejoice, Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel. O come, thou day spring, come and cheer Our spirits by thine advent here dispersed the gloomy clouds of night, and death's dark shadows put to flight. Rejoice, rejoice, Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel. O come, thou Wisdom from on high, and order all things far and nigh; to us the path of knowledge show, and cause us in her ways to go. Rejoice, rejoice in Mary, shall come to thee, oh Israel. Oh, come, these out nations bind, all peoples in one heart and mind. Bid enemy strife in quarrel cease, and fill the whole world with and heaven's peace. Rejoice, rejoice, Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

Sing rejoice.

Rejoice, rejoice, Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel. Sing that one more time. Rejoice, rejoice, Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

Let's bow our heads in prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, that is our prayer for today, that you would help us to await readily for the day when your Son is born into this world, Lord. Though that happened 2,000 years ago, we're still living in the consequences of that, where that, that event is still just as real today as it was when it transpired so long ago, and it's still just as relevant to our, our souls and our hearts and our joy and our peace and our hope today, Lord. So would you come Would you be God with us, God among us, as we prepare the way for your return, Lord? Thank you that we're able to gather this morning expectantly, waiting, singing songs to you, singing of your glory and singing your praise, just preparing our hearts and seeking to prepare our thoughts and our minds as we go out into the world to also prepare the way out in the world for your return. So Lord, we thank you for that. We thank you for the peace that we can experience in you because of the hope we have in your return, because of the hope we have that you are walking beside us until that day. So be with us this morning, Lord. Would you remind us of that peace that we have in you and that hope that we have in you? In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

All right, before you're seated, could you please take a few minutes and just greet those around you?

neighbor, and I learned recently she's a poet. And I thought, you know, a lot of people could say that, right? But you can judge for yourself in a moment because she has penned several Advent poems. And I asked her, would you mind? I asked Michael first, would it be okay? Yes, let's hear some Advent poems. So this is the second in the series because we Weren't on the ball. November is an Advent season. It happened too quickly the first week, but we are going to start with week 2. So, Cece, would you please? Good morning, brothers and sisters. What a wonderful season of hope and expectation. This series was written for the Church of the Nazarene about 10 years ago. And the idea was to take those core values of each Advent Sunday, those wonderful words, right? Hope, peace, joy, love, and in a psalm fashion, celebrate that particular, that particular value. So this one is called Upon the Second Week of Advent. Peace is the wheat stalk's comfort, the blanket of the harvest winnowed carefully from other more violent moments. Its providence in the desperation before the long darkness is gathered up to us, no axe at its root. Peace settles and grows in the field bearing its fruits upon each moment, upon each head, upon each sheaf, smoothing the path, burning the chaff of the world away, baptizing us in its glory, the promise of a seed sown long ago.

Amen. Thank you, Sisi. If you would please stand if you're able for the reading of God's Word. So we'll be reading from Exodus and also an epistle of Peter in the New Testament, and FF just means and following. So we're starting in the chapter— we're not going to read the whole chapter, we'll be reading starting in those verses and then continue continuing for a little bit. Okay, so we'll start. Then bring to you Aaron your brother and his sons with him from among the people of Israel to serve as priests, Aaron and Aaron's sons. And you shall make holy garments for Aaron your brother, for glory and for beauty. These are the garments that they shall make: a breastplate, an ephod, a robe, a coat of checkerwork, a turban, and a sash. They shall make holy garments for Aaron your brother and his sons to serve me as priests. Then you shall bring Aaron and his sons to the entrance of the tent of meeting and shall wash them with water and put on Aaron the holy garments. And you shall anoint him and consecrate him, that he may serve me as priests. You shall bring his sons also and put coats on them and anoint them as you anoint their father, that they may serve me as priests. And their anointing shall admit them to a perpetual priesthood throughout their generations. Then from 1 Peter chapter 2, verse 4 and following: As you come to Christ, you yourselves, like living stones, are are built up as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Please be seated. Oh, sorry. I appeal to you, my friends, as strangers in this world. Do not give in to bodily passions, which are always at war against the soul. Your conduct among unbelievers should be so good, even if they think of you as evildoers, they will have to recognize your good good deeds and so praise God on the day of his appearing. I think that's it. Yes, please be seated.

Okay, we're going to do a little exercise, and first I want you to think back to when you were 10 years old or perhaps 5 years old and remember what was it that you wanted to be. You grew up. If someone were to ask you at age 5, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Or age 10. And don't say it out loud yet. I want you to get in mind at least 1 or 2 careers or jobs or professions that you once wanted to be when you were younger. You got it? Okay, now how many of you said policeman? Oh, we got 1 policeman. How about firefighter? Aeroplane pilot? A ballet dancer? Politician? President? How about athlete? A rock and roll musician or some kind of musician? How about priest? I didn't think any hands were going to go up for that. Priest? What even is a priest? It's not the sort of thing that we think of as something we would look forward to or look up to. And if you look at the simple definition, a priest is a mediator between the supernatural world, or the world we cannot see, and the natural world, the world that we can see. And what priests do is a lot of mumbo-jumbo to try to bring those two together, right? They do rituals and they perform blessings. I'm not talking just about priests in the Old Testament church. I'm talking about priests anywhere that you go, like in this picture. So the question is, when we read in the Old Testament about the priests and the garments they wore, and then you look around this church, you think, what happened? Are we very disobedient believers and not putting on the proper garments of the priests? And this is what it looked like, something like this, artist's rendition, when in the Old Testament times, here's a family that needed some kind of a ritual, a cleansing ritual, and the priest would do the thing. That's what it looked like, but what does it look like today? Well, we don't have robes. But indeed, it says in Revelation that Jesus asked us or made us to be a kingdom of priests. So something's not quite right here, and we today, we're going to think about what is it, what does it mean for us to be priests today, to be a kingdom of priests, and what does it look like, and how can we learn from the Old Testament priests and apply that in our times us today. And I just— in case you're not familiar with the general idea, the Old Testament is— had a whole deal, a whole Old Covenant that was full of the— what they call the law and had many rituals including perhaps the most foundational one which was called circumcision, which is something they did to all the boys that were born on the 8th day of life and they would cut a piece of skin off of their reproductive organ in order to mark them as part of God's people. And that ritual, when it came up to the New Testament and the believers were saying that the people of God are no longer limited just to the Judeans or the Israelites, it's now open to everybody. And they said, "Does that mean we all have to go get circumcised?" And that was a big question, and the answer was definitively No, you don't. That the circumcision was something to teach the people, and it's still interesting or relevant to know about it. But what we have is this— oops, I just skipped— the circumcision without hands. So all of the rituals that they did then, we learn something from it, but what we do now is a new form. You could say on another level. It's not in the physical realm that we do the rituals, we're doing them in the spiritual realm. And Paul explains the relationship between the Old Covenant and the New using this word in Galatians 3. He says the law or the Old Testament, the Old Covenant is a schoolmaster, was a schoolmaster, was like a guardian. It showed us the way. It was instruction when we were, you could say, like when we were youngsters. But now here we are in a new era where we're more like grownups. So we learn from it, but we don't follow the exact form of the old. Now we still, if you go visiting around churches today, I believe this picture on the left is taken from the Lutheran Church. Has anyone been to a Lutheran Church? And when you go there, the first thing you notice, if you grew up in this church and you walk in the Lutheran Church, what's the first thing you notice? Who are those guys dressed up? It's not like there's going to be a costume party or something later on. It's very striking if you're not used to it, but of course if you grew up in that, that is— that's the norm. That's what priests do. They have special garments. They have a special part of the stage that only the priests go on and there's a lot behind it. So there is— has anyone heard the term "high church" and "low church"? Within all of Christianity There are many denominations or traditions that will still— which they call High Church, which have a high view of ceremony, ritual, and traditions, sacraments, liturgies, and they're the ones that would try to learn from the Old Testament and borrow a lot of the forms, including the garments. So now, as you notice, there's no breastplate on the Lutheran priests. They're only borrowing from the ideas. They're not copying. So they would say they're adapting the Old Testament rituals to our New Testament world. But we are not in a high church. We're in a low church. And a low church has a low— a low view of the rituals and the ceremonies and a high view of informality. So we like informality. So my friend George, who I met about a month ago, he's visiting today right here in the— I got him in the front row. That was smart, right? He was one of the first guys here. Come sit in the front row. And he dutifully is sitting there. Why did I bring up George? Because he called me this morning. And you know what he wanted to know? What do I need to wear? He's been to a lot of churches. George is a Gideon. He works with with Gideons International distributing scriptures, and in the visiting many churches, you've been to some where you've got to wear what? You've got to wear a coat and a jacket and a tie. You wouldn't go in a church without full Sunday best. But in this church, we don't. Now I know that Shi Xiang, our elder Shi, Shi, he would love it if we all wore suits every day, right? So he's in a low church, but he has a high view of nice clothing, right? So if you like to please our elder, then Elder Emeritus, then you could just dress up a little bit. So we have nothing against nice clothing, it's just that is not our tradition. We look more like the guy on the right. Now when we're talking about this, we're going to be talking about us as priests. I want to make sure we're not talking about professionals, so we're not talking about professional pastors who may work in the church to make their living that way. Rather, I want us to think of it as like a hobby. And people ask me, a lot of times they'll ask me, because I got to be a minister late in life, they said, "What did you do before?" I said, "Well, I was a businessman." And they said, "Well, that sounds weird. You know, why would a businessman want to become a pastor?" I said, "Well, actually my hobby was the church." And they— that's how I explain my relationship to faith for so many years because we spent so much time— a lot of people spend time in their garage, right, tinkering with the old cars or making model airplanes, and I spent my free time a lot on the church because that was like my avocation, not a vocation. So we're talking about the topic that we haven't even started the proper sermon yet, is on the priesthood of the believer. Believers, that all of us that are supposed to be priests, what does that look like? And here's a— several books have been written on this subject, and you can tell from the COVID art, there's like these abstract paintings of, you know, people of all kinds kind of melding into one picture. That's one way of looking at it. And then here's another one on the left here. You can see all shapes and sizes and nationalities and tongues. Tongues and Nations, right? These are all people that are part of the priesthood of believers. But then I like this one on the right. These are all covers from book covers that I found on the internet. Just a couple of folks, you know, 4 people sitting around a table. I think this is like probably the most accurate representation of what the priesthood of believers looks like today. It's people hanging out. That's what it looks like. And so I want to get away from the idea that we need to have incense and special bells on our garments and special garments. No, we just need to just hang out. Now there is another word used, Paul, Apostle Paul uses in the New Testament to describe, to kind of put a modern spin on the word priest, and he calls us ambassadors. And the verses in 2 Corinthians goes like this: God, who through Christ Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; therefore we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. So this may be a better way for us to think of what is our role in the world, that we are ambassadors for Christ. We're diplomats. We negotiate between these two nations. Right? There's the kingdom of wherever we live, or the natural world as we saw priests are dealing with, and the supernatural or the invisible kingdom of God, and we are negotiating between the two. So now we can finally get started. Now that we know that what we're trying to do is not something that's really far away or really ancient, we're trying to do something that's very much grounded in reality, how to be Christ's ambassadors. What does that look like? And what do we learn from the book of Exodus? And what we see in all this scripture in Exodus about the priests is several things that we just read. Some of it is they're clean and that they're clothed and that they are connected. And we'll see what I mean by that. So let's— now, the alternative to being clean, clothed, and connected, right, is to be dirty, naked and isolated. So that's not what we want. That's living like an animal. Animals don't— they have fur, right? But they don't have clothes except for in some silly videos people put clothes on their cats and their dogs. So we want to find out what is that going to look like and what can we learn. Now Aaron and his sons, as we just read, were clean. Now there's two kinds of clean. There's physical clean on your body. Body, then there's spiritual clean, right? And now there's two kinds of spiritual— there's two kinds of physical dirt. There's the kind of dirt when you jump in a mud puddle and you get really dirty. But then there's the other kind of dirt that just happens. Did you ever wake up in the morning and before you got in the shower you did this? Do I really need a shower this morning? I sure do. What did I do? I didn't jump in any mud puddle, but something's not right. Dirt just happens, just with the passing of time. And so the kind of washing that we get, that Aaron and his sons got, was like a one-time only. They got sanctified, consecrated, ordained. There was like a baptism. That was one time only. But then they also washed, and they had this big basin at the front of the tabernacle to clean on a regular basis. And so likewise now in our day and age, we want to keep clean. We have to be clean in terms of a one-time, one-off ordained or baptized. That is one important step. But then also on a regular basis, every day, we we can then get cleansed again as we confess our sins and God restores us. So I wanted to look at this one section of Psalms where I believe this is from David. He says, "Who may climb the mountain of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy presence? Only those whose hands and hearts are pure, who do not worship idols and never tell lies. They will receive the Lord's Lord's blessing and have a right relationship with God, their Savior. So keeping our hands clean, our hearts clean is a big boost for our relationship to God. And we learned last week, couple weeks ago, how when God came down and lived in this tabernacle, He was protected from the people with all these curtains. But that when Jesus came, He— when He was crucified, the curtain was split. And in Hebrews, it's interpreted this way, that when sins have been forgiven, there is no need to offer any more sacrifices. And so, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heaven's most holy place because of the blood of Jesus. And by his death, Jesus opened a new and life-giving way through the curtain into the most holy place. And we know that we enter God's presence not Not because we deserve it, not because of our garments or because we went to the right part of the world where this structure was built, but because of the blood of Jesus, His Spirit is now everywhere, wherever people go and wherever we call on the name of Jesus. And it goes on to say, "And since we have a great high priest who rules over God's house, let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts, fully trusting Him." For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ's blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water. Have you ever had like dirty hands or something and you use regular soap and it was still dirty? But if you went to the store and you got this special soap that's made for like auto mechanics or something that cuts through the grease. And you put a little bit of that on there and it just came right off. So what we have in— from, from Jesus and from his blood is something that works with completely different active ingredients than the regular kind of washing. And so we all know that, but on a regular basis we can come to him and we can— when we get dirty, we can ask for this kind of help, both on a one-time basis and on a regular basis. So we do our best, and God knows our weaknesses, but He's given us this way to restore our relationship whenever we need it. Now, look at the clothing. We know that there's two kinds of clothing, right? There's physical clothing, this stuff. Then there is spiritual clothing. You probably didn't think of that much before, but we read about it in the Bible. Who remembers where it talks about spiritual clothing in the New Testament? Don? Yes, but where— what section? There's a whole chapter on Ephesians 6. That's right, and we're gonna go there in a second. So we just read together the scripture about— from Exodus about how the high priest was clothed, but we're gonna see how in the New Testament how we're clothed. But before we do that, I wanted to go to this really unusual parable from Jesus' kind of strange story, and it goes like this: The kingdom of heaven can be illustrated by the story of a king who prepared a great wedding feast for his son. When the banquet was ready, he sent his servants to notify those who were invited, but they all refused to come. The king said to his servants, "The guests I invited, they aren't worthy of the honor. Now go out and invite everyone you see." 'So the servants brought in everyone they could find, good and bad alike, and the banquet hall was filled with guests. But when the king came in to meet them, he noticed a man who wasn't wearing the proper clothes for a wedding. "Friend," he asked, "how is it that you are here without wedding clothes?" But the man had no reply. Then the king said to his aides, "Throw him out! For many are called, but few are chosen." And if you've read this story before, I don't know, for me I always kind of wrestled with this one. But I think this is illustrated well in the analogy of putting on clothes. It's not— if you don't put on your clothes, you're still a person, but you just aren't suited up for the wedding. You can't participate. So you have to go off to the side or go home and get some clothes. Clothes. So we are given clothing to put on, but we don't all put it on. It doesn't make you an unbeliever, it just means that we still— it means put on the clothes. And this is what it says in Ephesians 6, that passage that some of you just remembered. We are not fighting against flesh and blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world. Therefore, put on every piece of God's armor so that you'll be able to resist the enemy. Stand your ground, putting on the belt of truth and the breastplate of God's righteousness. For shoes, put on the peace that comes from the good news, so that you will be fully prepared. In all— in addition to all of these, hold up the shield of faith to stop the fiery arrows of the devil, and put on salvation as your helmet, and take the sword of the Spirit. Which is the word of God. So here we could go through these things one at a time, and perhaps you've heard a sermon like that. But the— I want to kind of zoom out today, and we're looking at all of these things prepare us, equip us to do the work of a priest, an ambassador. We're not on our own. We need these things. We need help. And so if we don't put these things on, we're going to be not very functional. As priests. Now, if you look at the contrast between the New Testament description of this clothing, the spiritual armor, and the Old Testament description, it's really striking because at first when I was looking for it, I was expecting to find that, you know, the helmet in the New Testament is like the turban in the Old Testament and the shield in the New Testament is like the breastplate in the Old Testament. And it doesn't add up that way. If you try to line it all up, it doesn't make sense. It's like Paul took a whole new crack at using— used a different analogy. So it's like he used different words to try to describe a similar idea. And he used the armor, which is what they used in— the warriors used, the gladiators is used. And you basically get to the same place at the end of the day. And that is we're in a competition. We're on a battlefield. We have enemies. We need this armor. We need help. And as the way when we just read the Scripture now, it says that the clothing are for glory and beauty. And so we need it, but also it is beautiful when you see We, the people of God, operating with those things, the Word of God, the peace, the Spirit, the righteousness, the faith, the truth, those things indeed are glory, are beautiful. Now, I thought it'd be fun to ask ourselves, what if Paul was writing the New Testament today, or maybe the new New Testament, what kind of clothing would he talk about? And I thought probably it would be this, at least if it was in the United States, because that would, you know, What would communicate? We understand, you know, helmets, shoulder pads, we would understand that much better. Okay, so we want to be clean and we want to be clothed, but we also want to be connected. And the best analogy I could remember to illustrate this is that picture of Moses when he's— when they're on the way to the Promised Land and they get in this battle with the Amalekites. Amalekites, and Moses went up on a hill and he held his arms out to God. And he was working on this vertical connection to make sure that they're not isolated, make sure, "God, help!" But meanwhile, down in the valley, can you see there's men down in the valley? Joshua's leading them. They're duking it out with whatever sticks and stones they had. So they're connected. There's like a team down in the valley. Connected together. Then there's this team up here because Moses needed help keeping his arms up, remember? And then they're connected together kind of because by line of sight they could see each other, and Moses could tell when they were advancing or when they were retreating. And then of course they're connected to God. So all this is working together at the same time. These are relationships that are— it's not just by yourself. Now, one of the— if you remember from a few weeks ago, God, when he made the covenant, he wanted all of Israel to be priests. You're going to be a whole nation of priests. But as we know, in the end, only the Levites were priests. So do you know why only Levites were priests and not all Israelites? It's because of the golden calf incident that Kevin was talking about last week. And you left out, or you alluded to it, but you didn't really go into the punishment for after the golden calf incident was the death penalty for— was it 3,000? 3,000 death penalties were handed down. So Moses couldn't execute 3,000 people. So he said, Moses saw that Aaron had let the people get completely out of control, so he stood at the entrance to the camp and shouted, "All you who are on the Lord's side, come here and join me." And who came running over? The Levites. I'm not sure they understood the assignment when they, they did that, but they carried it out. They took their swords and they executed the death— 3,000 death penalties that day. And so God said, okay, you guys are gonna be my priests. And he set them aside because one of the things you need to do as a priest is you got to pick sides, and you're loyal to the Lord's side. In other words, you follow him. And that was the same question, or similar question, that Jesus asked some fishermen and some people in a few other professions. And he said, "Follow me." In Mark it says, "Immediately they left their nets and followed him." And I was wondering, "Oh, come on!" But I learned from other gospels they knew each other in advance. It wasn't like the first time they'd ever met. So now he's finally saying, "Okay, let's go." And they put aside their nets and followed. They made a decision. In other words, when you want to be an ambassador for God, you can't also be an ambassador for something else. That's why it says, "Many are called, but few are chosen." Not many showed up. Not all that he asked would follow him. Or we heard, we read later about some of them that fell away. So what do priests do? We saw on that mountain, what is Moses doing? We call that interceding. He's asking God for help for other people that are on the field. Do we do this? We do. Does it— do you have to be a minister to do this? Absolutely not. Every time you pray for anyone, you are making a petition or sending up a prayer, you are interceding. And we do this on Wednesday night through Zoom. And it might seem really artificial, but I really do kind of recommend, if you, if you want to try doing more interceding, that we can do that together, encourage each other to do that. And I wanted to say there's one person— we started this in September of last year We've had about 30 of these meetings for prayer. And there's one person who stands at the top of the list, who's been more often and more faithfully to show up for that time of prayer. And do you know who that is? He probably wouldn't appreciate it that I mention. It's none other than Michael Battalora. He is the elder. He doesn't have to. That is his own time. He volunteers to be there. And I just want you to know that you have people up there that are praying for you, and it's not for show, that it's really, it's real and genuine, and I know that there are results. And so you're invited to be part of that core as well, any Wednesday night. If you can't make it, we'll send you the list of things that we're praying about. One thing you know that priests do is they teach. And there was one thing that they— there was a time in Israel's history that they had a really bad time when there were no priests. And it says for a long time they were without God, without the true God, because there was no priest to teach them of God. When we talk about God, you don't have to be on a podium. It's just like I was saying around the table. You're talking about something invisible to the world that's visible. You're acting as that ambassador. You're bringing invisible things into the natural realm. As it says, Paul says in Romans, "How are they to believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?" So faith comes by hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. So this is— by verbalizing, we are being ambassadors, and by not verbalizing, we're missing opportunities. One thing the priests did was they provided all of the musician corps. They trained people in instruments, in singing, in psalms. And the trumpets, and they praised. As it says later in Hebrews, "Let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God," that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge His name. And this is something, obviously, we do this on a regular basis, don't we? And I hope you enjoy it. I surely do. Some high churches, they like to pray, they like to sing the song. The Psalms in the middle of your Bible was like the hymnal of Old Testament times. And they said, "Well, there's so many good songs, we should just sing those songs instead of writing new ones." And that's probably not a bad idea, but we just have so many new ones that have been written as well. So this is something that we're already doing pretty well, and it's something you'll know that wherever the people of God are, they will be singing and praising. Now, something that ambassadors do, or priests, or people of God will do, is they will influence each other in a positive way. In 1 Corinthians, it says this is what a church is all about. Those who proclaim God's message speak to people and give them help, encouragement, and comfort. In Christianese, we call this discipleship. Go and make disciples. But in the business world, we call it leadership development. There's different words for the same thing, but what it is is being a positive influence, which is God's hands and feet. It's doing what God would do if he were— what Jesus would do if he were right here in your shoes. Just like Jesus in this picture is leading those two disciples disciples on the road to Emmaus. Everyone wants to be an influencer these days, right? Well, you already are. You're already an influencer, underpaid perhaps, but nonetheless. Now, one thing that I don't know if you fully appreciate, that I hope you will take with you today, and that is that we can actually give blessings to each other that's like a power that was given to the priests. And Moses said, thus you shall bless the people of Israel. And he— if you do that, I will bless them. And the words of the blessing, which you've heard many times, I'm sure— this is called the Aaron or Aaronic blessing, not ironic blessing, Aaronic blessing. The Lord bless you and protect you. The Lord smile on you and be gracious to May the Lord show you his favor and give you his peace. You have— it's like having an extra wallet. You have one wallet with money in it, and your other wallet is with spiritual blessings that you can just pass out, and it won't cost you. It never runs out. As quickly as you pass them out, it will fill up again. I know I've read books about people who do this for their children.

Children.

They give their children a blessing every night, and they— it's like this special bonding thing. Or there's families, the Jewish families, that do this on their Friday night Sabbath. They make a special deal of giving blessings to their children. So this isn't a perk of being priest or ambassador of God. But in this last category, what they did a lot in in the priesthood in the Old Testament was a lot of work, a lot of tiring, mundane, time-consuming work, somewhat unskilled labor. Some of it was skilled labor. They had to tend the fire. They had to bring the coals. They had to cart away the ashes. They had to carry the water to fill up the basins, and they had to deal with the dirty water. They had to get the animals. They had to clean them up. They had to discard the extra hooves and the bones and what a mess. They had to deal with the oil and the incense, the transportation and the storage and the packaging. They had to move the tabernacle. Sometimes they wrapped it all up and they would have to move to a whole nother camp and they'd have to set everything else up again. They had to handle their finances. They had to do their garments. They had to wash the garments. They had to manage the living quarters. It was a lot of work. And guess what? What we have now is so much cheaper. It's much more efficient to do a low church like we have now than it ever was to do a temple. So we should praise God, right, that Jesus led us out of this system that was so expensive. When he destroyed the temple in the first century, that left us to be free to come up with new ways or our own ways of how we want to do the services and how we want to worship together and what should buildings look like, and that's what we're doing. So I want to end with this familiar story that we don't always apply to ourselves. We kind of think it's something that's going to happen in the future, but I think it describes the work of ambassadors or priests of God very well. It says, "Lord, when did we see you hungry or feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?" And the King will answer them, "Truly I say to you, As you did it to one of the least of these, my brothers, you did it to me. So we serve— when we— as we serve each other in, in the church, the brothers, we are sacrificing not our animals, we're sacrificing our time, mostly our time. And that is what God finds acceptable here in Romans 12: Offer yourselves a living sacrifice to God, dedicated to his service and pleasing to him. This is the true worship that you should offer. Let God transform you inwardly by a complete change of your mind. Let us pray. Father, we, we are amazed always at your word and the the great detail and the trouble you went to over centuries to steward your people and to bring them through, through Egypt, through the wilderness, into the Promised Land, and then into exile, and then out of exile to prepare the way for the Christ Jesus our Lord, for him to do and say everything he did, to be killed and to rise again. And to have all these things written in a form that we can read them to this day, thousands of years later, with understanding and tap into your spirit that's with us today. And to understand the message that applies to all nations, all cultures, all economic systems, political systems, high churches and low churches, men and women, rich and poor, regardless of our vocations. Father, you've given us a great calling to represent you in this world with whatever abilities and time you've given us, not to compare to others but to offer in pure heart as a way of saying we acknowledge you, we thank you, we trust you, and we desire to give something back. And we say glory to your name. I pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.

Okay, could you all please rise and join us as we sing this song as we prepare our hearts to 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 sin for your new covenant. Hallelujah. And I'll live my life in remembrance. Hallelujah. Your promise I'll hold for— 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 will hold unforgiven. If ever I should lose, 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. 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. You've been so, so good to me. You've been 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, you've been so, so good to me. You've been so, so good to me. And now to think where I would be if not for you, if not for you. As far as heights reach, from the depths as far as deep 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 I'm not finished yet. Hallelujah. Hallelujah, hallelujah, I'll live in remembrance.

You may be seated.

Aaron was ordained as the high priest and his sons as the priest, and we're going to see a little bit a story to lead us into communion from his sons. Beforehand, I just wanted to remind you that on the night of the Exodus, they took the blood of innocent lambs and they spread it on the doorposts, and they ate the meat and unleavened bread. And on that night, while the angel of death was in the town, it passed passed them over, and they celebrated forever after annually the Passover. And in this picture, we can imagine our— how we were saved from our own death by the blood of Jesus Christ that was spread over us. And now we are going to eat and drink in celebration, which we do once once a month. In the tabernacle, they celebrated also once a year the Day of Atonement, and this too was a communion meal. It was a meal shared with the nation and with God. That's God eating in the altar. When he burns up a part of the offering, that's what God eats. Then the priest would eat part on behalf of the people. The meal was like restoring the relationship, an annual day of repentance. And when we do the Lord's Supper, we are doing the similar thing on a memorial basis, on a monthly— we do every month. Now, here are the two older sons of Aaron So they were washed and ordained along with their father as high priest. They were the priests. And a week later, they were ready to have their first day on the job. And here they are preparing to go through the rituals as they were told. And we read in Leviticus 10, "They put coals on the fire in— they put coals of fire in their incense burners." different from the kind the Lord had commanded, and brought it into the tabernacle. And reading between the lines of this story, we know that they must have been hasty or presumptuous. They did something wrong, or they might have had too much to drink. And the next verse, it says that fire blazed forth from the Lord's presence and burned them up, and they died. The two sons of Aaron before the Lord. And this is the problem that all humans would face in the presence of God. He's too much. It'd be like landing on the sun, right? The sun is just too hot. The voice of God in the thunder, it was too much. We know We are not worthy of his presence. When that happened, the first thing Moses said was, "This is what the Lord was speaking about when he said, 'All who serve me must respect my holiness.'" It was a public lesson to all those there and even to us this day that this punishment, while tragic, it was a righteous verdict. What can we do? Look what Aaron did. Aaron remained silent. He was reflecting. What else could he do? Moses went on to say, "You must distinguish what is sacred from what is common, what is clean from what is unclean." And this is kind of a similar problem to what Adam and Eve had to deal to deal with, or what Cain had to deal with. He didn't distinguish. Now, Paul, when discussing this Lord's Supper, he said, "I hear there's divisions among you in the church when you meet. Some of you hurry to eat your own meal without sharing with others. Some go hungry while others get drunk." Can you imagine if you came in today and then a bunch of you were over there and you'd already taken one of these trays and another one got the wine bottle out, "Forget this juice, we want wine, real wine," and they're off in that corner and someone else is in that corner, that violated the spirit of the whole ceremony. And he went on to say, "If you eat the bread or drink the cup without honoring the body of Christ, you're eating and drinking God's judgment." upon yourself, and that is why you are weak and sick, and some have even died. It seems that in that time there was even punishment or a kind of judgments that were happening. It was a serious business. Of course, what they were doing seems like it was pretty off as well. I'm reminded of a moment in Greek Orthodox, my Greek Orthodox of my Orthodox upbringing in a youth group activity when I discovered where the priests had hidden the wine. And I did unnatural things with the wine. I drank a little bit because I was, you know, a teenager. I thought it would be fun to drink some of it and got a little tipsy. If you want to hear the whole story, we can talk about it later. Nothing to be proud of, but it goes to show that that there are people who will not treat it properly, and that's what we want to do today. He goes on to say, "If we judge ourselves, we would not incur judgment." In other words, if we repent, if we change our behavior, he wouldn't judge us. "Yet when we are judged by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not be condemned along with the world." And that is why you should examine yourself themselves before eating the blood— eating the bread and drinking the cup. So like Aaron, let us remain silent for a moment. God is accepting us into his presence through the sacrifice, not of ours, but of our Lord Jesus Christ. It's his worthiness that he is giving us, and he's taking on our unworthiness. Can I have the ushers come forward, please? And he's extending to us food and drink, and we will share the meal now. Roger. Lord, hear our confession. We all, each of us, myself included, have fallen short. We've missed the mark. Of your calling as priest or ambassador. We weren't worthy of it in the first place. Yet we know Jesus died for this very reason, to take on our weakness. We know he was raised to give us new life, to prepare these garments, to prepare us for the ministry of reconciliation. And so I thank you for cleansing us, and I thank you for setting us right. Look on this bread, Lord. This is Jesus' body broken for us. And look on this cup, his blood spilled for us. This bread is the body of the Lord Jesus Jesus. Eat it now in remembrance of him. This cup is the blood of Jesus. Drink now in remembrance of him. Later on the same day that Aaron's two sons were killed, Moses instructed his younger two sons to sacrifice a goat. Find the picture here. He told them to sacrifice a goat as a sin offering and to eat a portion of it. But later Moses discovered that the goat had been entirely burned up and they had not eaten any of it, and he became very angry. Aaron answered Moses, he said, if I had eaten the people's sin offering, On such a tragic day as this, would the Lord have been pleased? And when Moses heard this, he was satisfied. On that day, the priests were grieving. They'd lost their sons and brothers, and to eat the offering in such a state might have been inappropriate before God. So they didn't keep up with the requirement, but it was out of weakness or for a good reason. Not deliberately. And so God had grace, didn't burn them up. He had grace and forgave them for that. As James says, mercy triumphs over judgment. And Samuel writes, God looks on the heart. So I want to just pray, Lord, have mercy. We thank you for your instruction. Keep us from temptation and deliver deliver us from evil. This morning we've eaten true food, we have drunk true drink. We are satisfied. Julie, will you come pray?

Hello everybody. Um, please, um, quiet your hearts and mind as we— as you join me in a congregational prayer. Let us begin. Heavenly Father, we come before you in the name of Jesus and Lord, we pray. We lift up to you this time of the season. Forgive us, Heavenly Father, for allowing ourselves to be distracted by the excitement of the festivities to come and family gatherings. May we be reminded that this is the time which our Lord was born. The Holy Night, long ago the earth was given a baby carried by the Virgin Mary, the King of Kings, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Praise be to God. We lift up to you, Heavenly Father, the families that are without. May they be blessed this season, and may you place an impression on our hearts to give as well to those less fortunate. We pray, Heavenly Father, that in this time of giving, we soften our hearts to the homeless and to the hungry. May we not wince or turn away from the shivering man on the corner, but muster up the courage to give him something warm to eat or something to get to his next meal. For what we do with our blessings is our choice. But for those willing, may it be a mark on our crown in heaven to ever be so loving as our Lord Jesus Jesus Christ. Oh, how he loves us. We plead the blood of Christ over our elders. Please grant them healing and a long life. We pray over our new brothers and sisters seeking Christ. Hallelujah! May, may we be a church of love and understanding as they begin their Christian journey, and give us wisdom with our youth who are also in need of guidance from you. Remind us, our Lord, to read your good word as we prepare our hearts and mind coming into this new year. And may we look to new beginnings. May we look into this new year with hope and for the rest of this one with patience. Please continue to guide us and keep us. In your name we pray. Amen.

Good morning, everybody. Before I get into announcements, is there anybody here for the first time as a visitor? If so, we have a gift for you, and you just have to raise your hand and we'll get it to you. And if you'd like to— oh yes, George. Yes, could somebody get George the gift package from the center area? His hand's over here. Michael, he's up over here.

Yeah.

George, would you like to introduce— actually, Paul already introduced you. Yeah, with Gideons International.

Yeah.

Anything else you'd like to say? Yeah. Great. Okay, if you could go to the next slide. Number of announcements, and if you don't catch them all, they're in the bulletin, and you can see the website there, wcec.churchcenter.com. And, uh, yeah, very good. And then next slide. So Momco will be this coming Tuesday, but actually before Tuesday, let me talk about today. Okay, uh, today we got several things going on, and so it's kind of a busy day as we go from here. We do have Sunday school in various locations. We also have decorating the church and the, the vote for the assistant pastor, James Pryor. That will be at 12 o'clock in the main sanctuary. So whatever you're doing, if you join us in the sanctuary, if you're a member, to come and vote. If you're— if you are a member and you won't be be present, we do have proxy forms on the back table that if you would fill it out, if you'd like somebody to vote for you on your behalf, like, and I'll be there so I could do that for you, then fill out a proxy and get it to me, or you can get it to Dwight if you want him to vote for you instead. I think, Dwight, you'll be there? Yes, he'll be there too. So, um, that's one thing going on today. The second thing going on today is that we are talking about the way we have our churches set up— high church, low church. Well, because it's Christmastime, we do set up the Christmas decorations. We started taking down decorations from Thanksgiving last Sunday, and today we'll finish the— we'll start the decorations. So some people will be helping Julie. If you would please help Julie, we— I know that, you know, I've done this many times, the more hands things that are there, the quicker it goes. And it's, you know, it's not troublesome work. It's not like washing animals to sacrifice and then having to burn them and smell the skin burning, the hair burning on animals and stuff. It's a lot easier than that. So, yeah, if you could help us, Julie will be starting up here after lunch. Yeah. And so please stay on and help us out with that. The other thing is I do need to mention also on the back table we have forms for the pledges. We're collecting pledges for the building project that will go on. The pledging process will go on until the end of the year. If we reach the million mark, then we'll go with the project. And depending on how much we go, how much we get in the pledging process depends on— that'll help determine the, the size of the building. So A, will we build the building? 1 million, and then B, based on the pledging amount, if it exceeds 1 million by a certain amount, will determine the size of the building. So that's the main things. As Paul mentioned, we do have the prayer circle every Wednesday. The details are in the bulletin. Oh, lastly but not leastly, blood drive next Saturday. Um, Stacy, are you able to sign them up today if they want to, if anybody's here that wants to donate? Absolutely. So if you're confused on how to do that or need some information, we'll be having a blood drive next Saturday from— I forgot the time— starting 9 to 2 o'clock. So plenty of time for you to donate your blood. So yeah, that's the main thing, I believe. So if you would please rise. Please remain standing for the benediction, the blessing that we impart as we go. And this again, as Paul mentioned, this comes from the book of Numbers, that he says that when you put this blessing on the people, that the Lord will bless us. So that's why we we like to end with a word of blessing. 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. Please go and serve the Lord in peace.