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Good morning everyone and welcome to our Sunday service here at Wilmington Community Evangelical Church. It's great to see everybody here. If you don't know it, it is already warmer today than it was all week. So we're experiencing a heat wave. So, uh, go outside in your shorts, t-shirts later on and enjoy it. Uh, I think the next week is supposed to be warm too, so we're thankful for that. Although we did have fun with the snow once, uh, On Monday, took the boys sledding, had a good time. It was bitterly cold, but we did enjoy the snow. So it's good that we have that change within the weather and in the seasons. But as I look out there, I also see that we have guests. And it is great to see that we have the brothers Godsave here. We have Keith and we have Daniel here. But also, we have extended it out to their parents. And we also have Keith's family, his boys and his wife. So we're all great to see everybody there. And we do have other guests which we'll talk about later on. Well, this past week, other than the weather, has been a week of changes. It's been an interesting week as far as what's going on with the new presidential administration. There's been so many changes that it's hard to keep track of it all. This is the 10th presidential election that I voted in, and this is the first time I think that there's been so many changes within the first week that you lose track of it. I think it's keeping the political analysts very busy this last week. And with those changes, sometimes there comes a lot of uncertainty and fear as to what those changes might mean. In fact, it might— for some of us, maybe it doesn't matter that much. For me personally, yeah, he's making some changes. You know, the Gulf of Mexico is now the Gulf of America, and who knows what else is out there. Doesn't really necessarily affect me, but it does affect part of my family. Now, all of you, I think a lot of you have met my niece Sunny, and if you know her, her name pretty much describes her personality and her disposition. She's a sunny person, and she kind of like shines forth light, and just in the way her, she goes about her daily life. Now, for the past two summers From the time that she graduated high school and at the end of last summer when she finished her first year in college, she went back to China. No concerns, no fears about traveling and coming back. But now there's a little bit of uncertainty as to whether or not if she goes, and going is easy, and whether or not, but the coming back, whether or not she will be delayed. So we're uncertain as to whether or not she will travel back to visit her family and her friends. And a lot of that uncertainty just brings, you know, when you're uncertain about what the future is holding for you, it can lead to fear. And it can lead to just struggling with what should you do? I don't know what I should do. And we're still kind of debating whether or not she should go back and/or whether or not she should just stay for the summer here. And she's already— the fear is that she would be delayed in coming back and it would delay her studies. And if you know anything about her situation, she was delayed in coming here at some point. When she was originally supposed to come is during COVID and she was delayed for a year in coming over here to study in America. So any further delays is kind of like troubling for her. And uncertainty and fear are two things that Satan preys on. It says in Peter that our enemy Satan goes around like a roaring lion seeking those who he can devour. He loves to devour those who are uncertain and have uncertainty and fear. But we also know that when the prophet Jeremiah spoke to Israel, and Israel was facing a lot of uncertainty as to their future, he told them, and I'll read it from, this comes out of Jeremiah chapter 29, 29:11. It's a popular verse, a lot of people know it. When I graduated high school, my parents gave me a keychain that had this verse on it, and then when I got married later on, my wife confiscated it and it is now on her keychain. But this is what it says from the prophet Jeremiah: For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. "Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart." And that's something that when we come up with those uncertainties and fears, we seek out God in those times. We reach out to him in prayer and petition, and we ask him, you know, for guidance and wisdom. And Nihau, when Elder Nihau was here last week, he was talking about the Beatitudes, and he mentioned along with one of the Beatitudes, that passage within, it's also the verse that we're talking about later on in the sermons on, it comes out of chapter 6 of Matthew, but later on chapter 6 kind of ends with this statement. It comes out of Matthew chapter 6, verse 33. But seek first the kingdom and its righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble for its own. And what I'd like you to get out of this is to trust in the Lord. There's always going to be uncertainty, there's always going to be unchange, but we worship a sovereign God, our Heavenly Father, who is eternally unchanging, and His promises are the same today— are yesterday, today, and tomorrow. So as we enter into our time of worship, and into our time of just listening to the message, keep that in heart that our God is continually watching out for us. He is continually looking out for us in ways we're not even— that we don't even know. So let's come together in prayer and then we'll go on to the message or to the sharing. Alright, Father God, we thank you that we could have this time to come together with one another. This is as a family and as as a community within your house, Father God. We're thankful for the guests that are here with us, Father God, just to pray that we can extend our love and our hospitality to them as they're with us for this time, Father God. So we commit our time to you, and we look, we just ask that you be with us, the Holy Spirit come upon us, Father God, and that we can open our hearts and ears to, to hear the message in your word. And we ask all this in your precious Son Jesus' name. Amen.

Let's stand now for a time of worship. Shout to the Lord!

Shout to the Lord, all the earth, let us sing power and majesty, praise to the King. Mountains bow down and the seas will roar. At the sound of your name. I'll sing for joy at the work of your hands. Forever I'll love you, forever I'll stand. Nothing compares to the promise I have. Hey you, my Jesus, my Jesus, my Savior, Lord, there is none like you. All of my days I want to praise the wonders of your mighty love. My comfort, my shelter, tower of refuge and strength. Let every breath, all that I am, never cease to worship you. Shout to the Lord, all the earth, let us sing. Power and majesty, praise to the King. Mountains bow down and the seas will roar. At the sound of your name. I'll sing for joy at the work of your hands. Forever I'll love you, forever I'll stand. Nothing compares to the promise I have. In you.

My Jesus, my Jesus, my Savior, Lord, there is none like you.

All of my days I want to praise the wonders of your mighty love. My comfort, my shelter, tower of refuge and strength. Let every breath, all that I am, never cease to worship you. Shout to the Lord, all the earth, let us sing. Power and majesty, praise to the King. Mountains bow down and the seas will roar. At the sound of your name. I sing for joy at the work of your hands. Forever I'll love you, forever I'll stand. Nothing compares to the promise I have. In you.

If my heart, if my heart is overwhelmed and I cannot hear your voice, I'll hold on to what is true, though I cannot see. If the storms of life will come and the road ahead gets steep, I will lift my hands and pray.

I will believe. I remind myself of all that you've done. And the life I have because of your Son. Love came down and rescued me. Love came down and set me free. For I am yours, I am forever yours. Mountains high, oh, valley low, I sing out, remind my soul that I am yours. I am forever yours.

When my heart is filled with hope and every promise comes my way, when I feel your hands of grace rest upon me, Staying desperate for you, God, staying humbled at your feet. I will lift these hands in praise.

I will believe.

I remind myself of all that you've done and the life I have because of your Son.

Love came down and rescued me. Love came down and set me free. For I am yours, I am forever yours. Mountains high, oh valley low, I sing out, remind my soul that I am yours. I am forever yours. I am yours. I am yours. All my days, Jesus, I am yours. Lord, I am yours. I am yours. For all my days, Jesus, Jesus, I am yours. Love came down. Love came down and rescued me. Love came down and set me free. For I am yours. I am forever yours. Mountains high, oh, valley low, I sing out, remind my soul that I am yours, I am forever yours. Love came down. Love came down and rescued me. Love came down and set me free. For I am yours, I am forever yours. Mountains high or valley low, I sing out, remind my soul, That I am yours, I am forever yours.

All right, let's bow our heads. Dear Lord, I thank you for this day. I thank you for, um, just a bit of warmer change in the weather, um, and I give you praise for every single day that we're able to have to spend with our loved ones and to be able to worship and and be a light for others. Lord, I pray that, that you speak truth through Paul, that, that there will be ears that are open, that there are hearts that are soft. Pray that you, he would be bold, and pray that you would give us ears to listen. Lord, in your name I pray.

Amen.

Good morning.

Um.

It's so great to be here. I got my family here this time, so I thought they would come up with me as we share. This is Betiana, my wife, for those of you who don't remember. This is our littlest, Teo. He's 6 now. And this is Noah. He's 10. So last time we were here, they were— it was 4 years ago. So a lot's changed since then. We've gotten— all of us have gotten a little bigger. Um, but we just want, we just want to say first and foremost, thank you so much, all of you, for all your, your support and prayer for our ministry and what we're doing there. Um, it is so great to be here, and it's so great to, to see some of you. Some of you we recognize, some of you we don't, but, uh, it's great to be here. And, uh, and thank you, thank you so much for your support. Thanks for your prayers, you know. I know some of you are praying for us, some of you every day. That means a lot to us. That's awesome. But we're just happy to be here. It was a little bit— our boys are a little bit disappointed to find out that the pancakes plastered all over the doors are not today. It's not— the pancake social is not today. But we've enjoyed eating a lot of pancakes while being here. But it's great to be here. With you guys. We just want to share a little bit what we're doing, just briefly, and then Daniel's going to be sharing a little bit, uh, what's going on in his life. We just want to share, um, we, uh, for those who don't know, we about 5 or 6 years ago, we started a church replant in a small town in Trente Tres, Uruguay, a little town of about 30,000 people, and we've been there for 5 years. And the idea is go— we went to this, this small Baptist church, and the idea is to lift it up to get to a healthy spot where the, the, the church can kind of go forward. It was only about 5 members when we first got there, and slowly but surely we've been working at getting the church in a good spot. A lot of good things are happening, a lot of difficult things are happening, but you know, Jesus went, and when he talked about the kingdom of God. He didn't say it was the kingdom of God is like a microwave oven, you know, that just comes out really quick. No, the kingdom of God is a mustard seed that you plant and you wait and you water, and it takes time and it grows. And all the, all the good things God does in our lives take time. We know that, right? Everything— church, personal life, marriage— all it's It's growing slowly. The things of God are slow and deep, but slow, and we've realized that. So one of the things that in the last 2 years since I was here last, we've tried a lot of things. We did a lot of evangelistic stuff in the last 2 years, just see what would work, and we've had a lot of closed doors. We really have. We've seen a lot of closed doors, but we've also learned every closed door is an opportunity. Every closed door is a— is, is an opportunity. It's— that's a principle we, we learn from the scripture. For instance, when Paul would go to a synagogue, he would go to a new town, he'd go to synagogue, and if that door was closed, it meant another door was open. It meant an opportunity to reach the Gentiles. And even Jesus, when he sent out his disciples, he sent them out and he said, go to this town and go door to door. If, if one house says no, go to the next one. And if one town says, "We don't want to hear it," go to the next one. Don't just stay and linger in one spot. And this doesn't mean we give up on anybody or we just say, "Oh, this group doesn't want anything to do, so we're not going to try anymore." But it does mean, I think, that when there is closed doors, we say, "Where's the open door that God's wanting us to go through?" And part of what we've seen, it hasn't been so much an ethnic door or, you know, a race like in Paul's day, but it's more of a generational thing. We've— while older people and adults have— a lot of them have said, ah, you know, what you hear in Uruguay a lot is, well, that sounds great, you know, I believe in God, and some of them even believe in Jesus, but they say, you know what, I'm going to do it my way. I like to do things my way. I don't want to go to a church and then they're going to tell me how I have to do things. I'm going to do it my way. I'm going to be at home. I'm going to live my life how I want and believe how I want. So that's kind of what we see a lot, but what we've— the doors that God's been opening for us in the last 2 years has been with younger people, with kids, with adolescents, and that's the doors that God has been opening for us, and that's what we're trying— that's the doors we've been trying to go through, and we've seen a lot of great things happen. Just in December, we had 4 adolescents be baptized, and these are 12-year-olds, 13-year-olds that have been with us for the last— some of them last 5 years growing up in the church, and they got to a point, it's like, "I'm a Christian. I want to get baptized." And so those are great steps that we're going to continue to work with, and I think will continue to happen in the next year. So keep praying for that. But, you know, we just want to show a video because a picture says so much more than a lot of words. And so we're going to show a video, let you see this video, and it's just a little bit of what happened this last year, you know, just pictures of this last year of the church, of things we've done. It was made for the church, basically, and so I just modified it a little bit to show to you guys today. Thank you so much for your prayers. Thanks for everything, and God bless you. If you guys want to talk afterwards, feel free to talk with us and ask us questions. And we have prayer cards, new ones that we made, so anybody that wants to take one of those, please feel free to take. So thank you very much.

De dónde viene, de dónde viene mi socorro, mi ayuda viene de ti. 1, 2, 3, let's go!

El cielo cuenta de tus obras.

Pues si es vida por ti, estelas de misericordia todas apuntan a ti. Si me encuentro perdido, sé dónde te pueda encontrar. Alzaré mis ojos a los montes, ¡Amén! Alzare i suoi occhi a los montes, bebere radiante como el sol, seguir el río de tu gracia, porque sé que tú sigues siendo Dios, sigues siendo Dios. Me ayuda bien en ti, alzaré mis manos a los cielos, te veré obrando a mi favor, seguiré tomado de tu mano porque sé que tú sigues siendo, sigues siendo, sigues siendo mi amor, mi amor. Make sure I got to the right mic here.

Um, thank you guys for supporting my brother, first of all. Paul Condrell, before I say anything about what's going on with me, I just want to thank you for that. I know Keith and his family are very appreciative of that, and I'm appreciative of that, that this church has continued to be a major element of his support base. So I really appreciate that. I just want to share quickly, just briefly, a couple of things about what's going on for me. As some of you, most of you know, I have been in New Jersey. I've moved over the summer to East Brunswick, New Brunswick area of New Jersey to do— pursue church planting. So I'm doing training through an organization called City to City, which was started by Tim Keller, Redeemer Presbyterian Church. So I'm doing biweekly training. I'm part of a training program called Fellows with a cohort, and that's been wonderful. And then I'm also doing a church planting residency with East Brunswick Community Church. Which is Thomas Wong's church. Many of you know Thomas Wong from our church retreats. I think he's coming back this year, right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. No, he's wonderful. And it's been, it's been a wonderful experience. So it has been marked, I would say, by 3 things the last 6 months. Number 1 is just constant training. I'm learning, constant learning, learning lots of new things. I'm reading a lot, and just relearning and learning what a church is, what a church should be, what a church can be, what it means to start a new church, and all the things that go into that. And it's been, yeah, it's been really, really helpful to kind of reshape and relearn all those things. Also getting to know this new church family of East Brunswick Community Church, which is a very diverse group of people, a wonderful church. Thomas is, of course, a wonderful pastor. Pastor and leader. And it's been wonderful being under his guidance and leadership and being a part of that community. And then the third thing is that I'm being challenged. So I'm constantly challenged about how to do and redo ministry. I'm leading— part of my ministry is leading the young adult ministry there. Young adults are increasingly— I'm discovering in this country and especially in New Jersey, in that area, very transitory. They're, they're constantly moving, constantly removing, and careers in constant flux. And they're also super busy, super overcommitted. So it's really hard to nail people down and get people involved. So just very recently, we actually kind of got a consistent group of people together. So that has been challenging. And then I'm also— something I want to really grow in is my ability to do natural relational evangelism. I'm not naturally good at that. I'm not naturally just kind of good at striking up conversations with strangers. And that's when I challenged myself in that because church planning, to start a new church, it needs to be made up of new believers. And to do that, you have to talk to people and get to know people and share Jesus with people. So that's something I'm personally challenging myself with. And a part of that is just getting in places where I'm going to be rubbing shoulders with nonbelievers. So I plan to join a running club. I'd run a lot. I'm going to join a running club in the, in the community. I'm going to try to play pickleball more to do that, even though I suck at pickleball. But a lot of, a lot of people play pickleball. It's a going thing, if you guys haven't heard. A couple of prayer requests. If you guys could pray for me as I am learning a lot more, I'm starting to figure out, try to figure out where actually I will plant a church. And that will define and determine a lot of what I'm gonna be doing in terms of the context, who I'm reaching, what kind of church it's gonna be. So I'm hoping to figure that out by the summer. So if you could give me wisdom, prayer for wisdom for that. Also, for those of you who don't know, so I'm working part-time at the church in East Brunswick, but I'm also, I have a full-time job still with the same organization I've been with It's called Year Up United. It's a nonprofit workforce development program, and that organization has been going through a lot of changes and a lot of reorganization, and I'm more than likely gonna get laid off from my current job. So I'm currently looking for a new job, which will— is dependent for me to be able to sustain myself financially. So if you could pray for that, that would be definitely appreciated. But thank you again. Thank you for having my family, and thank you for having my brother and supporting him and supporting and praying for both of us. Thank you.

Okay, well, it was great to hear from both the brothers, Keith and Pastor Daniel. One of the two things on the video I loved. One, the baptism was out in a river, I'm assuming. That was really great. But also you guys had foosball, and if you go across the hallway here into the youth room, we have a brand new foosball table. So we could have a challenge between Pastor Keith and Pastor Paul on foosball. Pastor Paul is very good. I mean, he's got to represent us. He's very good. But let's go on to our scripture reading for the day. Bring it up. It comes out of Matthew chapter 6, verses 9 through 13.

13.

So it begins with this, "This then is how you should pray: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one." That seems short, Well, I'm so excited this morning to be able to speak to you about God's kingdom. It's something we all have a vague idea of. And what is God's kingdom? It's something I've been thinking about for a long time. But if you're like me, I started out in a church and we would recite the Lord's the prayer every Sunday, and it sounded something like this, a little bit like Don just did it. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, etc. Do you follow me? So it was a kind of a cadence or a song, or there was a rhythm to it, which wasn't a bad thing. And we all had it memorized, but it had a negative, and that is that it— because we said it every week or month, we wouldn't necessarily know what it meant. It was there, but it was still, like I said, a vague idea. So today I'm going to re-punctuate this one verse in the middle of that prayer as follows. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And I think of this whole prayer, this part of it is Jesus expressing kind of his mission, what's on his mind as he does his ministry. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And so today, I want to— later Daniel prophesied that a Messiah is going to come and lead them back out of this exile in Babylon into this new kingdom. They're going to have restoration. And that's like the term of art, and you'll see it all over the prophets. "I will restore," including the verse that Don just read today in context is talking about the restoration. And here it is, "For I know the plans I have for you," says the Lord, "they're plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope." This wasn't originally written to us. This is written to the poor Israelites whose thousand-year nation had been destroyed and they had been carried off to Babylon. And Jeremiah says, "I will end your captivity and restore your fortunes. I will gather you out of the the nations where I sent you, and will bring you home again to your own land. So it's little surprise that when Jesus is talking about the Kingdom of God to the people who were— these people waiting for restoration, and even after He's raised from the dead in the book of Acts in verse 1, the disciples, apostles who were with Jesus, they kept asking Him, "Lord, has the time come for You to free Israel and restore our kingdom?" So they're very much expecting and hoping for Israel to be free of the occupation of Rome, which is what they had at the time, and to be restored to its former glory, to become a nation once again. But Jesus replied, "That's not for you to know." It was— He kind of avoided the question because it's too complicated to to answer it, so he just let it sit, that the restoration that God had in mind, the new Israel was gonna be something quite different from the old Israel, and he couldn't explain it in just a moment. Now, if we look at the transition between King Saul and King David, we get an idea of a pattern of what happens when God had chosen— first He had chosen Saul to be king. Remember, and then Saul did some bad things and Samuel said, "You're going to be deposed. You're not going to be king anymore." And he went and he anointed David in secret in the home of Jesse. But then there's these years that after Saul has already been told, "You're going to lose the kingship," David's been told, "You're going to be king," but they're both there. Saul hasn't died yet, so there's this transition. And so we're going to see that this sets a pattern. For how the old Israel becomes the new Israel and the old king becomes the new. So there's this transition in between and it's kind of messy. And if you remember, for example, there's the story of how Jonathan recognized that Saul— that David was gonna be the new king. Abigail recognized that David was gonna be the new king even while Saul was still on the throne. And so we're gonna see that in the transition from the old Israel to the new Israel, that the old Israel has been judged to be adulterous, and there was this divorce, and God allowed them to be carried away. But at the same time, he promised this restoration. The restoration was going to be the new Israel, and then there's this messy period in between when the old one is still around and the new one has not quite formed. And we're gonna see this fleshed out in a minute. So one thing we can say, a few things about the new Israel before we go on, and one is that it's not limited by geography, which is nice. Otherwise, we'd all have to crowd into the borders of Israel in order to be part of God's people. So that was a nice innovation, if you will. And also, the new Israel brought with it a new covenant. So it's like a country has a constitution, Or if you looked at the Old— how Moses brought the law which formed the basis of the covenant that made God's people set apart from every other kind of people. And that you can read the Old Testament and read all about it. But after this destruction and they were carried away to Babylon, through Jeremiah, God prophesied, "The day is coming," says the Lord. When I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah. And this covenant will not be like the one I made with their ancestors. I will put my law deep within them, and I will write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. And one of the changes— we can't go into all the details, but there's a couple of key changes that you're well aware of in the difference between between the Old Covenant and the New. And perhaps the biggest one is in the Old Covenant, God lived in this Ark of the Covenant in this one spot, tabernacle or temple, and that's where God resided. If you wanted to approach God, you had to go there. But now it says, Jesus said, "I was going to destroy this temple made with hands and build another made without hands." And it says in Corinthians that you, that is we, are the temple. And that looks very different, doesn't it? In the Old Covenant, there was forgiveness that was provided when they sacrificed animals, and especially on the Day of Atonement once a year. But Jesus now, in the New Covenant, it's his sacrifice that we know is much better than the sacrifice of bulls and goats and even sheep. And we don't have to keep going back and doing it again and again. And we know in the Old Covenant, if you were doing something like caught in adultery, the penalty was you would be stoned to death. But in the New Testament, only those without sin are allowed to condemn you to death. And there's only one person that fits that description. And when Jesus had the opportunity, he said 'Neither will I condemn you, but go and sin no more.' So we see the New Covenant, as I said, they're much better in all these ways than the Old. Now, the First Covenant or the First Nation was formed by an Exodus. They came out of Egypt and into the Promised Land. So what sort of Exodus is happening when we go from the Old Testament or the Old Covenant into the New? Well, it's very interesting. So first we see— did I go backwards? The time is coming. Okay, this is also from Jeremiah, and this I'm quoting here because I want you to see how Jeremiah contrasts the original Exodus with the new Exodus, and he puts them side by side when he says, the time is coming, says says the Lord, when people will no longer say, "As surely as the Lord lives, who rescued people out of Israel from the land of Egypt," who rescued the people of Israel from the land of Egypt. Instead they will say, "As surely as the Lord lives, who brought the people of Israel back from the land to which he had exiled them." For I will bring them back. So the first exile, the first Exodus from Egypt to the Promised Land, the second Exodus from exile into the restoration. And we can see this here. So here is the original birth of Israel. I'm just putting it in this little pattern so you can try to visualize. If you look at the blue line, this is the Israelites when they were in, in Egypt. Then a lot happened. They had this Passover. They crossed the Red Sea. Moses said, "Let my people go." And they escaped from Israel and they landed in the wilderness for a while. They didn't go straight into the Promised Land, did they? So they're in this 40 years of wilderness and then they cross the Jordan, Jericho is destroyed, they enter the land and then they settle in the Promised Land. So there's these stages. And the reason I mentioned before kind of how Saul went to David, we see how there's this messy bit in between and we could read all about it in the book of Numbers and so on. So this is the pattern of the first Exodus. Now watch what happens when we just use the same pattern but flip the facts. So Israel now is starting out already formed, living in the Promised Land, but then they go into exile. So here they are in exile, and here we are where Jesus says, "Thy kingdom come," and they're about to go through Jesus' death, resurrection, and Pentecost. And then they're about to go through this 40 days— 40 days— 40 years of history to come in the book of Acts. And finally, Israel's destroyed and that's the end of the temple down here at the other side.

Hello.

So the second black line is when Israel's finally destroyed and the Kingdom of God is all on its own. So what you could see is that Christianity— I don't know if you've imagined that in the book of Acts, and someone just mentioned, I think Keith did, they went to the— there was still Judaism and the Christians were like a sect of Judaism. But then once Judaism was destroyed, or at least the Old Testament version of Judaism was destroyed, now Christianity is out on its own. So it's almost like— It's almost like when a mother has a baby. It's like this question we debate is when does life begin? So the mother conceives a baby, becomes pregnant, then there's this 40 weeks of gestation, and then they have birth pangs, out comes the baby. So there's no question that this mother, she's by herself, this is— and the baby is born here, but this is kind of messy in between. It's like that fetus. Is that part of you or is it its own thing? Whoops. So, and my reason I'm mentioning this is you can in a way say that Israel is like the mother of the new Israel. The old is the mother of the new. Kind of shaking you around here. Can you see that? Can you see that on camera over there? I hope it's not too distracting. I'll try to stand more still. Okay. So now if we have a New Covenant and a new Israel, we have a new citizenship, that is new qualifications. The old qualification was, how do you become an Israelite? You get born, basically, yes, and then circumcised on the 8th day. If you're a female, you don't even get circumcised. So really, it's DNA. You're born, you're out of this lineage that puts you, by and large, into the citizenship of the old Israel. But the new Israel is different. The new Israel, they say, is an inside job. And actually, Paul talks about this early in the book of Romans when he says, "A true Jew is one whose heart is right with God. And true circumcision is not merely obeying the letter of the law." And a couple chapters later, "So the promise is received by faith, whether or not we live according to the Law of Moses, and if we have faith like Abraham's. For Abraham is the father of all who believe." So now we see that among those Jews— here's a diagram. There were all of the Israel by birth. These are the people now who have gathered back from the exile. They're still spiritually in exile, but they're physically located in Israel. And remember that John went around baptizing, and who showed up for the baptism? Did everybody show up? A lot of people did. Those are the people, using Paul's language, whose hearts were oriented towards God, whose hearts were pure. They knew they needed God. They're the ones that showed up for the baptism. They're the ones who repented. They're repentant. And there's another word you'll see used in the Bible called the remnant. The remnant means there's only a portion of the original DNA Israelites were those who he also calls the wheat and not the chaff. So there's this division. And Jesus said, "Don't think I came to get everybody together. I came to bring division." What's he dividing? He's dividing the wheat. From the chaff. Among whom? Among those who were DNA types of Israelites in the old Israel, because he's going to figure out who is the new Israel. So he's drawing out, kind of like the Exodus, out of all the people living in Egypt, some were drawn out and some were left behind. And this is— baptism of John identified some of them, and then of course later they all had a chance to believe, uh, God if they chose to. Or not. Now, where are we in this picture?

Oops.

So we know that after this, so after Jesus, Book of Acts, Book of Acts, there's Peter gets the vision and then Paul preaches to the Gentiles. The Gentiles too are grafted in. Do all Gentiles believe the message? Of course not. So there too is a division between those Gentiles that had the wrong DNA to begin with. But among all those, some of them heart is right, and they trust in, in God and repent also, they too enter the kingdom of God. So this is the new citizenship. But they also have a new land. A moment ago, we saw how it's not limited just to the land of Israel, but really the new land is where? You could say everywhere, but could you be more specific? Is it everywhere? And so I'm going to show you that The new land is the human hearts. It's those willing human hearts are the land where God's kingdom is now flourishing. And we see this, for example, when they asked Jesus about, you know, where will the kingdom of God and where is it gonna be? He answers this question obliquely. He says, "The kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed, where they will say, 'Look, here it is,' or there." There it is, "For behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you." Other translations says it's among you or within you. In other words, it's virtual. It's on Zoom. It's everywhere where people log in. So if you log in, you're there because you have the right heart to be there. You've chosen to be there. It's an invisible kingdom.— and therefore it's everywhere. And he specifically says, when Jesus meets the woman by the well, he says that the woman thinks, "Is it going to be up north in Samaria or down in Jerusalem?" He says, "It's neither one. It's neither here nor there. The hour is coming and now is here when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for God is spirit." And this is also very important that the qualifications is not just that we have willing hearts in this invisible Kingdom, but that we choose. We are voluntary members. So no one is forced in or pushed in. And the best scriptural basis for this attitude or heart is found in the book of Philemon, that very short letter that Paul writes to Philemon to ask him a favor. And he says, "I could demand it. I'm asking you a favor. I could demand it in the name of Christ because it's the right thing for you to do, but because of our love, I simply prefer simply to ask you. I didn't want to do anything without your consent. I wanted you to help because you were willing, not because you were forced." And this is exactly how Jesus leads the people in his kingdom. Kingdom. It's not like in the army here where you, you know, you're given an order and if you don't do it you get kicked out. That's not the way the Kingdom works. It has this— the land is wherever we go where we have willing hearts. All right, now we have a new king, and of course the new king is Jesus. They were expecting that someone would be like the son of David, the grandson of David, the great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson of David. When they got Jesus, they got more than we bargained for because Jesus is half son of David and He's also son of— so Mary came from David's family, but the sperm that made Jesus came from God. So He's God's Son. That is our new King, and we all know about the Lamb will conquer. He is the Lord of Lords and King of Kings. In other words, there's visible kingdoms like Trump, let's say. Trump's not the last word. Because there's a president of presidents, and that's where Jesus reigns today. And sometimes, you know, people think, "Oh, it's so weak. You know, if you're invisible, you can't really reign." Well, the devil's got a lot of influence without being physically present on earth. And so Jesus also has a lot of influence even though he may not be physically present on earth as he was in the first century. Now we also have— so we're not going to spend any more time on him. Because we all know about that. And also, we have a new enemy. And the enemy is where? "We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual wickedness. The weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God." So you can read all the history of the Israel's history and all the wars they had, and they fought the Philistines and the Moabites and the Ammonites and all the nations around them, and all those prophecies against those nations. And you read that and you're like, well, it doesn't mean anything to us. So there's big chunks of the Old Testament that just— we could just read, read over and not, not really care. But actually, the, the application is that we're also fighting enemies, but it's a different kind of enemy. So the enemy, as it says here, is partly in our own, within us. So we have like the bad guys. Did you ever see the Flintstones cartoon? This is really dating myself, but there used to be this guy Fred Flintstone, and he would be debating this decision, and a little angel Fred would pop up in his thought bubble saying, "Oh, you should do the right thing," and then this other little little devil Fred Flintstone would pop up in a little bubble saying, "Oh, you should do the wrong thing," and they'd have this little argument. So there's a struggle that's going on within us, but there's also an external struggle, and that is described here in— well, it's partly alluded to in both records that we destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God. In other words, It's these ideologies. So you could say the whole kingdom of God, all of these things we've been discussing are a truth or the truth, but then there's other ideas out there that are fighting against it. And those then become the enemy, one of the enemies that we have to fight against. And we fight them with spiritual, with a spiritual battle. Now finally, this is the last of the characteristics. Our covenant, our new Israel has a new destiny. And what do I mean by that? And what I mean is that if you go back to the original, the Torah, when Moses is still on earth and he's giving all of the last instructions to the Israelites and they're right on the precipice about to go into the land, he predicts He predicts that they're not going to make it. Did I get ahead of myself? He says— let's see if I have that here.

No.

Sorry, sorry, sorry. He says, Moses says— I know, I know what I've done now.

Okay.

Moses in the Old Testament, he predicts before they even went into the land, he says, 'After my death, you will become corrupt and disaster will come on you.' In other words, if you look at Deuteronomy, it's in chapter 31, verse 29. Moses predicts— and there's this whole thing called the Song of Moses where he predicts that they're not going to make it. In other words, the Old Covenant, the original Israel, is sort of doomed from the start. And that prediction is already there. And so their destiny is to only go so far. And we know this is true because we knew the whole purpose of that is to point to the better covenant. So that is the destiny. But what's the destiny of the new covenant? Something very different. And here Jesus describes it in one way. He says, "The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed." This was alluded to earlier. "It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown, it is larger than the garden plant." and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches. And so we learn a few things here, although it's a kind of oblique way of saying it. The progress of the kingdom is very slow, but it's also very effective. And like the 5-year effort of Keith and his family is bearing fruit. And you could see— that was a beautiful video, by the way. I really, really I really enjoyed that. It's a real glimpse of the Kingdom in different places. It's a long haul. And even this, not just 5 years, it could be 5 more— 50 more years or 500 more years. It's a slow and steady progress of the Kingdom of God. So our destiny is to grow and to prosper. And we'll see that our victory is assured. I'm gonna skip over this one. The kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and hid in 3 measures of flour until it was all leavened. So we can imagine the kingdom of God is spreading throughout the whole world. And I saw a new heaven and a new earth, and I saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven. Like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. This is the destiny of the new Israel, the new covenant, the Kingdom of God. Now, there are setbacks and sometimes we don't always see the good results that we have anticipated or expected. But we know that we're taking part in something that's so much bigger than us, and its origin is with God and his Son. So the victory is assured, and that leads to the challenge— this is also alluded to earlier— and what I want to leave you with, that we seek the kingdom of God above all else and live righteously, and he will give you everything.

You need.

Shall we pray? Father, we're thankful for this message that you have given through the prayer that Jesus prayed so many years ago, expressing his heart's desire to see your influence in your reign throughout the world in the willing hearts of his people, your people. I'm just thankful for all those who have responded to that message throughout history, for all those who are serving you today, for those who will serve you when they respond to your message. That even though, like the woman that was caught We're caught, and we don't deserve the grace you give us. But like the woman you forgave, we trust in your forgiveness, and we know that the debt has been paid by the Lamb who is now the King. Father, it's almost too much to comprehend. So let us learn day by day and week by week as we begin to understand you better. And to that end, let us seek your kingdom. In Jesus' name I pray, amen.

All right, let's stand and, uh, respond to that message in worship. Walking around.

Walking around these walls. I thought by now they'd fall. But you have never Never fail me.

Yeah.

Waiting for change to come, knowing the battle's won, for you have never failed Your promise, your promise still stands. Great is your faithfulness, faithfulness. I'm still in your hands. This is my confidence. You never fail me.

Yeah.

I know. I know the night won't last. Your word will come to pass. My heart will sing your praise again. Jesus, you're still enough. Keep me within your love. My heart will sing your praise again. Your promise still stands. Great is your faithfulness, faithfulness. I'm still in your hands, this is my confidence. You never fail, your promise still stands. Great is your faithfulness, faithfulness. I'm still in your hands, this is my confidence. You never fail me, yeah. when there was no way. And I believe I'll see you do it again. I see you move, you move the mountains. And I believe I'll see you do it again. You made a way when there was no way. When there was no way. And I believe I'll see you do it again. Your promise still stands. Great is your faithfulness, faithfulness. I'm still in your hands, this is my confidence. You never fail, your promise still stands. Great is your faithfulness, your faithfulness. I'm still in your hands, this is my confidence. You never fail me, yeah. You never fail me.

You may be seated.

I'm going to do the announcements, and Henry, I'm going to mess you up because the next slide actually has visitors, but I'm going to give Dwight a minute. He's going to go get something. So, but anyway, I'll start off by saying thank you everybody who has been praying for my family. I had a, they call them a routine surgery, but it didn't— anyway, I'm doing a lot better. I'd better not digress. And sometime I'll talk a little bit more about it, but I do appreciate the prayers. I appreciate also the lots of food that we had provided by people. Every time the food dropped down a little bit, Wendy would say something about, "I really need to teach you how to cook." Which last night she said to our son, "I need to start teaching him how to cook." And I thought, wow, we've been married all this time and she says start? I mean, how many times— anyway, I digress. But thank you everybody for your prayers and for the food. Food that's been provided. I, you know, I was kind of knocked out of commission for a few days, but I'm— as you can see, I'm standing upright and doing well. As far as announcements go, Henry, we're going to skip over the visitor announcement, but if you go to the next slide, we're coming back. There we go. So Friday Night Groove, you can see Friday Night Youth, you can see the dates there, the first FNYG. Momco will The next one will be February 11th, Salt and Light Fellowship. You see the things that are coming. EEMT is scheduled to today. I just wanted to mention that one. So grab your lunch and meet us in the lounge. And you know the rest about the winter youth retreat. And then also, if you're interested in transferring your membership here or you've never been baptized and are thinking about that, please talk to Paul Condrell afterwards, or you could talk to myself and we can talk to you about what that entails. Is there one slide next or we have to go to another set? There's a new opportunity that popped up from the community service deacon, and that is that on January 31st, that's this coming Friday, 7:30 AM to 12:00— oops, we lost it there.

Yeah.

The Food Bank of Delaware needs some folks to help them. And so if you can help out, contact Ashley Yu. Her phone number is right there. Her email is right there. So if you would, if you need some volunteer hours or if you would like to— I guess on Friday at that time people would be in school. But if you need— if you'd like to serve and help out, then And please take a picture and contact Ashley. And so the next— I think that's all the announcements. So I do want to welcome visitors, as we've said earlier. Good to see the Godsave family here again, 3 generations of Godsaves. So that's a little bit different for us, but glad to see you. And Keith, good to hear your update. But if anybody else is here and a visitor, we do have a visitor's package for you. We have one aspect of it, but we ran out of visitor's cards. And so that's where Dwight has run off to go and see. So if you raise your hand, we'll get you a gift, if there's any new visitors here today. And yep, so at least one. Yeah, Michael, you can give them the one with the contact card in it, please. I don't know, is it Eric next to him? Yeah, if you'd like to introduce him. He came with you, right?

Oh, sorry.

Okay. I totally misunderstood. Okay. Anyway, thank you for coming and I'm sorry to embarrass you, Eric. If he would like to, it's up to him. Sorry about this. How y'all doing?

Good morning.

OK, well, anybody else? If so, raise your hand and you get to get the same gift that he got. Otherwise, please stand for the doxology.

Amen.

Praise him, all creatures here below.

Praise him above all heavens. Praise God in the highest.

Please remain standing for the benediction from Ephesians chapter 3, verse 16. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or even imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. Thanks for coming.