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Good morning. Welcome to the English service of WCC. I know many of us are traveling with friends in other places or vacationing in some resort. So it's always good to reflect after the festival of Christmas, right? There's a lot of things going on, a lot of stress on our mind. Traveling can be something that we have this blessing to enjoy the time off, as long as the work and from other leading up to the Christmas events. So as I was staying local and then visiting local, like Longwood Gardens, and see a lot of visitor from out of state, as I reflecting on the the life in a part— almost, we almost going to have the past of the year right now. So a reflection of the year behind us, almost behind us, and the year ahead of us. So I think that's a good time to think about what God has in place for me and what God has done for us individually. So Paul is going to talk today about John the Baptist, and I was thinking about the reading about these two events. One, we welcome the— we celebrate the birth of Jesus, which is the beginning of salvation for us, the hope of salvation for us. And also John the Baptist is baptized Jesus, obviously, and that's also the beginning of Jesus' earthly ministry on earth. So it's the beginning of the short time that Jesus has had with us on earth, but has significantly changed our life trajectory for, for thousands of years. So, um, so I just wanted to, to urge us to reflect on our— what God has done with us, uh, to each of you in the last year, and, uh, and make a plan for next year. Because the journey of salvation, the birth of Jesus, is only a beginning. It's not the end. It's not— it's the journey towards his kingdom. That's on everyone of us. So let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for the blessing you have with us this past week. You sent your only Son to be with us to repent for our sin so that we have the hope that one day we'll be with you in the kingdom. But we know the journey to this Kingdom is full of pitfalls, and we know that we, by ourselves, we cannot really deal with all the sins because the burden is so great that we will break down before even standing up. So with you, we have the strength, we have the faith that you instill in us, in every one of your believers, and followers so that we may have the hope and strength to carry on in this burdensome world. So please be with us as we listen to the worship and message today. And with this, uh, please, in Jesus' name, amen. Okay, good morning everyone. It's nice to see everyone after— I hope everyone was at the, uh, the Christmas Eve service, and I hope you all had a very blessed Christmas Day. Um, as for me, I've been sick since Christmas Day and I'm just recovering, so if you see me wearing a mask, that is why. And that's why Bonnie here will be helping sing most of the songs, if not all of them. Um, but yeah, so I also do request that even if you don't know the songs, uh, because we did have to do some last-minute changes because of said sickness, that you would still try your best to sing along and that we would just be able to, uh, edify one another with our voices, that we'd be able to sing together and just worship as the church. So could you all please rise?

Our Father. Our Father everlasting, the all-creating one, God Almighty. Through your Holy Spirit, conceiving Christ the Son, Jesus our Savior. I believe in God our Father. I believe in Christ the Son. I believe in the Holy Spirit. Our God is three in one. I believe in the resurrection, that we will rise again. For I believe in the name of Jesus. Yes, Lord, forever seated high. I believe in God our Father. I believe in Christ the Son. I believe in the Holy Spirit. Our God is three in one. I believe in the resurrection, that we will rise again. For I believe in In the name of Jesus. And I believe in you. I believe you rose again. I believe that Jesus Jesus Christ is Lord. And I believe in you. I believe you rose again. I believe that Jesus Christ is Lord. I believe in life eternal. I believe in the Virgin birth. I believe in the saints' communion and in your holy church. I believe in the resurrection when Jesus comes again. For I believe in the name of Jesus. I believe in God our Father. I believe in Christ the Son. I believe in the Holy Spirit. Our God is three in one. I believe in the resurrection, that we will rise again. For I believe in the name of Jesus. I believe in God our Father. I believe in Christ the Son. I believe in Christ the Son. I believe in the Holy Spirit. Our God is three in one. I believe in the resurrection, that we will rise again. For I believe in the name of Jesus. For I believe in the name of Jesus. Sahara. Peace like a river wash over me. Immerse me in water as deep as the sea. Hide me in love, your healing embrace. Peace like a river, wash over me. As I worship your majesty, worship your holy name. Jesus, my everything, all that I am is yours. Come, Holy Spirit, rain down on me. Break open the heavens and drench the unseen. Pour out your presence as I pour out your praise. Come, Holy Spirit. Lord, have your way. Worship your holy name. Jesus, my everything. All that I am is yours. As I worship your majesty, I worship your holy name. Jesus, my everything, all that I am is yours. Open the heavens, fling wide the gates, flood every heart with mercy. Pour out your presence, inhabit our praise, as we cry holy, holy, holy. Open the heavens, fling wide the gates; flood every heart with mercy. Pour out your presence, inhabit our praise, as we cry holy, holy— Oh! Oh! Holy Lord God of hosts. As we cry, holy, holy, whoa, whoa. Lord, send revival. Lord, send it now. A move of your Spirit. Heaven, break out. Come now in power. Cover this land. Like you've done it before, would you do it again? Lord, send revival. Lord, send it now. A move of your Spirit. Heaven, break out. Come now in power. Cover this land. Like you've done it before, would you do it again? Lord, send revival. Lord, send it now, a move of your Spirit. Heaven, break out. Come now in power, cover this land like you've done it before. Would you do it again? Lord, send revival. Lord, send it now, a move of your Spirit. Heaven, break out. Come now in power, cover this land like you've done it before. Would you do it again? Heaven break out, heaven break out, heaven break out, heaven break out. <LYRICS>Lord, send revival. Lord, send it now. A move of your Spirit. Heaven, break out. Come now in power. Cover this land like you've done it before. Would you do it again? Lord, send revival. Lord, send it now.</LYRICS> A move of your Spirit, heaven break out. Come now in power, cover this land like you've done it before. Would you do it again? You have all my attention. I will linger and listen. I can't miss a thing. Lord, I know my heart wants more of you. My heart wants something new, so I surrender all. <LYRICS>All I want is to live within your love, be undone by who you are. My desire is to know you deeper, Lord. I will open up again, throw my fears into the wind. I am</LYRICS> Desperate for a touch of heaven. Oh, oh, oh. You're the fire in the morning, you're the cool in the evening. Name. Breath in my soul, oh, the life in my bones. There is no hesitation in your love and affection. It's the sweetest of all. Lord, I know my heart wants more of you. My heart wants something new. So I surrender all, all I want is to live within your love, be undone by who you are. My desire is to know you deeper, Lord. I will open up again. Throw my fears into the wind. I am desperate for a touch of heaven. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Open up my heart to you. I open up my heart to you now. So do what only you can do. Jesus, have your way in me now. I open up my heart to you. I open up my heart to you now. But only you can. Jesus, have your way in me. I open up my heart to you. I open up my heart to you now. So do what only you can. Jesus, have your way in me. Go. Lord, I will open up again, throw my fears into the wind. I am desperate for a touch of heaven. Oh, oh, oh, oh. Oh! Oh! All I want is to live within your love, be undone by who you were. My desire— You're my God. There is to know you deeper, Lord. I will open up again, throw my fears into the wind. I am desperate for a touch of heaven.

Bow our heads in prayer. Lord, all we want is more of you. And whether we know it or not, whether we feel it in the moment or not— because when life is good, it's easy to forget all that you've done and the reason why life is good. And we've lucky that's Advent season because we're reminded of the Son that you gave us to die for our sins, sacrifice himself so we could live this life. And it's hard to remember you and your sacrifice when life is good, when we're celebrating the Advent season, when Everything is so joyful and we meet everyone again as we come back for the holidays, come together. But we're always reminded that we just, we need you, Lord. We can't live our life without you. And we're all just reaching out for that touch of heaven because we know it's more amazing than anything that we could ever think of. And I just thank you so much. Thank you for this life, for everything that you've given us. And I just pray that you'll speak through Minister Paul as he speaks about John the Baptist, and that whatever you want to send through to us, it'll touch our hearts and we'll be able to take that in and Yeah, in Jesus' name I pray.

Amen.

Hello. Okay, um, so I've been invited this morning to speak a little bit about, um, how God is moving in my life. Um, so a quick introduction on who I am. My name is Christina and I'm a sophomore at Yale, and I attended WCC quite regularly for some years before heading off to college. Um, so yeah, before I start off, I just wanted to start off by saying that, um, I've been always very involved with Christian ministry on my campus. And so the, the issue of, of me growing away farther from God has never been an issue for me. However, the Lord has also challenged me to put him first in everything and to make him my first love, which is much easier said than done, especially when in college there are so many distractions. Um, and for a very long time, I struggled to do my devos every day. And honestly, the busyness of school quickly consumed my life, whether it be academics, studying, catching up with friends, or even doing my extracurriculars. Um, and I have to say, I found time and time again that my time with God, purposeful time with God, was never wasted time. And yet I still struggled to read my Bible every day.. And looking back during this time, I became increasingly anxious about everything. Um, and it was not like the anxiety that I had before I met Jesus, but it was still like every night I would go to sleep and it felt like a ticking time bomb. Um, it was like, oh, I need to do this and this tomorrow. I didn't remember to do this tomorrow. And like, it was, it was just not good. And, um, in the midst of this struggle I met this girl named Adeline, and she's from the University of Connecticut. And I shared last Thanksgiving break how we became friends. But long story short, I was hosting her in my common room for a Be Me conference because I didn't want to pay for this conference. And if I hosted her, I could go to this conference for free. And basically, she was supposed to stay in my common room, and then I was supposed to drop off some food or something, and then I accidentally brought her to, um, the Christian Union Ministry House, um, when I was dropping off the food, and that is how I found out she was a Christian. And we basically became really good friends within 24 hours. And so, um, she had a really good time at Yale, and I was like, I want to go visit UConn some point. And so I decided the weekend before Thanksgiving break that I was going to go visit her. Um, and I also was interested in meeting her ministry. Her ministry is called The Navigators, and their entire thing is, how do I spread the gospel to my friends, and how do I evangelize to my friends? Um, and they have this entire thing where they host Bible studies for new believers and for people interested in learning more about Jesus. And so I was really interested on meeting some of the people in her ministry and talking to her staff members. And so on the train ride there, I prayed that God would use the weekend to teach me more in this area of evangelism, but that I would also be able to spend quality time with him. Um, and, and yeah, during this time at UConn, I ended up going to the Navigators Friendsgiving, and I met so many people, both Christian and non-Christian. Um, and while I spent a lot of time with people I didn't know, um, I honestly was not socially drained even after like 4 hours, which is a really big miracle for me because I, I still think I'm an introvert at heart and I can spend days alone and be fine. Um, and so the fact that I was not drained after that period of time being with so many people was honestly just amazing for me. Um, and after I spent the rest of the day, um, afterwards I spent the rest of the day, um, at Adeline's dorm and ended up meeting some of her other friends and we ended up talking a bit before going to bed. And I ended up having to wake up like 6 hours later because of church. And we wanted to have like a coffee before we went to church. But when I woke up 6 hours later, I was honestly like— it was honestly like the best sleep of my life. Like, I cannot tell you. I'm the type of person who, like, I sleep at a new place and I cannot fall asleep right away. I slept like a rock the entire night.. And when I woke up, I had so much peace in my heart, and it was just an overflowing of rejoicing. And, um, church was great. On the train ride back home, um, I was reflecting, and like, I learned a lot of things during this time. I ended up talking to a lot of the staff members like I expected, um, but I think the greatest gift of this entire weekend was that I learned how much I needed rest. And it wasn't until that weekend that I had the most restful break of my entire college experience, which is saying a lot since I'm in my second year. Um, and I learned that there is so much busyness in my life. Like, I have a Google Calendar, and if you are not blocked in my Google Calendar, I will not be able to meet with you for the next 3 days, basically. And so that is just the culture that Yale has. I'm not sure if other places also experience this, but there's this constant expectation of, oh, you need to be doing something, you need to be, uh, either if you're spending time with people or you're working on something. And so I learned that it was only through slowing down that I was really able to experience true rest, and I was able to see God's goodness in my life. Um, and also to clarify, I had a I still had to skip things to make time for this weekend. I ended up having to skip like 2 meetings, uh, dance practice, and like I forgot something else, but I ended up being able to catch up on everything within like 15 minutes on the Monday. And so in actuality, I didn't really miss anything. And so I just wanted to pull up, um, Luke 10:38-42. I have on my phone, um, and this is a story where, uh, Jesus is, um, he goes to the, the house of Martha and Mary, and Martha is— I'll just read it. Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village, and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving, and she went up to him and said, Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me. But the Lord answered her, Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her. And so, as cliché as it is, um, I want to be like Mary, but I often find myself in the position of Martha, um, because I easily become very overwhelmed with everything I want to do and need to do to do. And I found out it's so easy to get caught up in work, um, and there's always this constant stream of things you need to do. But God is the only place that you can have true rest. Even during, um, the breaks that I was supposed to have, I was not actually having true rest because I would just constantly have this mental buzz of other things I want to do or need to do. And so As hard as it may feel in the moment, it's so necessary to just sit at Jesus's feet in order to be renewed again. And I've learned that if I feel like in the moment that I do not have this time or space in order to sit at his feet, that means I do need to sit at his feet because that's when I need him most. Um, and fortunately, good news for you all, you don't need to set aside an entire weekend to also experience this. Um, you only needed to give space to God to speak to you and for you to listen, which is why devos are so important. And so I learned that instead of a task that I need to get done every day, I learned to view it as more of a time to rest in God, which has made my quiet time so much more fruitful. Um, and yes, while I still struggle to keep a consistent routine, um, God has been faithful and both giving me the time and reminding me gently whenever I forget. I thank God in all of this, and I pray that you will also be compelled to sit at his feet today. Thank you.

Uh, before we do scriptures, uh, we can get up and greet each other for a few minutes. So this is a holiday, so maybe you're Seen someone before? Yeah, it's really an inspiring story by Christiana. Is this the one?

Yes.

Okay, let's stand and read the scriptures. So today is from Matthew chapter 3, verses 1 to 6. At that time John the Baptist came to the the desert of Judea and started preaching. "Turn away from your sins," he said, "because the kingdom of heaven is near." John was the man the prophet Isaiah was talking about when he said, "Someone is shouting in the desert, 'Prepare a road for the Lord! Make a straight path for him to travel!'" John's clothes were made of camel's hair. He wore a leather belt around his waist. And his food was locusts and wild honey. People came to him from Jerusalem, from the whole province of Judea, and from all over the countries near the Jordan River. They confessed their sins, and he baptized them in the Jordan. I baptize you with this water to show that you have repented, But the one who will come after me will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. He is much greater than I am, and I am not good enough even to carry his sandals. He has his winnowing shovel with him to thresh out all the grains. He will gather his wheat into his barn, but he will burn the chaff in a fire that never goes out. Matthew 3:11-12. You may be seated.

Well, good morning. We're talking about John the Baptist. That means not the John who wrote the Gospel of John. John the Baptist died during Jesus's Jesus' ministry. And also, he's called the Baptist, but really we think of him as the forerunner because his role, or what he did with Jesus, was to be his forerunner. So yes, he did baptize people, but he's sometimes known as John the Forerunner, which is perhaps a better description. Now, what he really did in those times was he sparked this amazing, amazing revival. So John was out there in public before Jesus, and it's not exactly clear how long, but it was at least 6 months. It could have been a year or 2. And he had— he made a big accomplishment, which was what he basically got all of Judea sensitized and ready to meet the Messiah. Now there was also, of course, the scriptures, the prophecies that someone would come like we just read, a voice crying in the wilderness. But that was like 500 years earlier. So after this, there was this big gap between the Old Testament, Malachi being the, the last prophet, 400 years before John and Jesus came on the scene. So you could say it was like the Dark Ages. And after all of these years without a prophet, suddenly there was John, and the people recognized him as a prophet, and he started to do this baptism, and people came from all over. And what he was announcing when he said, "The kingdom of God is at hand," is something new. So he's— there had already been, as I said, there was this prophecy, not only that there would be a voice crying in the wilderness, that he would prepare the way for the Lord, the Lord being the new king, the son of David that had been promised, the king that would be better even, better than David, also called the Son of Man. And depending on where you turn, you could go look at Isaiah, you could look at Daniel. Daniel had forecast that there would be 4 different kingdoms in the world, and that turned out to be Babylon and Persia and then Greece and then Rome. And then after Rome, the Son of Man would come and he would tear down even Rome, and that the kingdom of God would become like this big mountain in its place. So there's this great expectation because Daniel had said that it would be 490 years from the time of Daniel to the time of Messiah. And one of my sons said, 490, that sounds like a strange number for Daniel to write in there. He didn't actually say 490. He said there would be 70 weeks, and each week was 7 years. So 70 times 7. Was the 490. But if you look in Isaiah, he also says— and sometimes we hear it in the song called the Hallelujah Chorus. Who heard the Hallelujah Chorus on Tuesday night? That's a— yeah, that was a tremendous blessing. The government will be on his shoulders. The government will be on his shoulder, actually in singular, is there because Isaiah has said this is what they're expecting in the Messianic age, something very new. Now ultimately, and this is also very important, that John had this whole personal brand, you could say. He was a big deal and quite famous. But he did it all, then he basically handed it over to Jesus by identifying him as the Lamb of God. And we'll read from John. This isn't from Matthew. The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him. And said, 'Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! I came baptizing with water that he might be revealed to Israel.' And John bore witness, 'I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God.' So, you know, in the world today, if you want some celebrity to endorse you, you have to pay a lot of money. Well, this was a tremendous endorsement that John gave to Jesus, and he humbled himself before Jesus saying, "I am unworthy even to tie his sandals." So we'll see, like, if you zoom out, you can see John and Jesus as like this one-two punch. They're like a combination that we're able to accomplish a lot more together or because John was there, Jesus was able to get a lot more done in a much shorter period. And so obviously, God had this as part of his plan. And one example then how John was able to take it— excuse me— Jesus was able to take advantage of John's having come before him was in some of the criticisms that he received. One of the criticisms was, that he didn't act like a prophet. They're saying Jesus would just go to banquets and he would eat and drink, and that doesn't look like a prophet to us. He's eating and drinking with sinners. But then Jesus will say, well, we played the flute for you and you did not dance. We sang the dirge and you did not mourn. John came neither eating nor drinking, and you said he has a demon. The Son of Man came eating and drinking, 'And you say, look at him, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners. Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds.' In other words, John was— he looked like he had the look of a prophet. He was an ascetic. He was like one of these guys that didn't eat normal food and didn't wear normal clothes. But Jesus did the normal things. And so you had this contrast. And both were of God. So it's easy to criticize. And Jesus was saying, "You criticized him and you criticized me, but you can see that we're all— both of us are from God." And there was another occasion towards the end of his life when he's walking in the temple and the chief priests and scribes and elders came and said, "Who gave you the authority? By what authority are you teaching in the temple?" And I remember this seems— strikes really home for me. As many of you know, I lived in China for for quite a few years, and I did business there. And there was this— the way they would put it in Chinese, like, who approved? Who approved of you to do this kind of business? Who approved? Shei geni pi la, shei pi jun na. This was like a constant refrain. Like, you couldn't do anything unless you had been approved. Well, Jesus didn't have a degree, and he didn't have an approval. He wasn't properly vetted. To be teaching in the temple. But what did he say? He didn't just say, no, actually I'm not— I have been approved. He said, well, who— he said, I'll ask you a question. Answer me and I'll tell you by what authority I do these things. Was the baptism of John from heaven or from man? Answer me. And they discuss it with one another. This is the leaders of the temple. If we say from heaven, he'll say, why didn't you believe him? 'But if we say from man, well, they were afraid of the people, because all held that John really was a prophet.' So they answered, 'We do not know.' And Jesus said to them, 'Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.' So you see how God was able to set up Jesus' ministry, which didn't have any proper pedigree, by having the prophet first come, which also didn't have a proper predigree because all people, they all recognized what John was and that made it easier to accept that Jesus also would be someone whose deeds would show, be the proof of who they were instead of their pedigree or their degree. And again, I'm looking at this like combination, this one-two, how John led to Jesus just like Moses led to Joshua. There's a lot we can learn from how these— God uses people in concert with each other, not just individuals, but how one will lead to the other. And how Moses was like a forerunner to Joshua. And also how Elijah and Elisha, they work— it's even hard to keep their names apart. They worked also as like a tag team. And Elisha's ministry is much more powerful because of of what Elijah did before him. And even there's a geographical connection. If you look at where John baptized Jesus on the Jordan, not far from Jericho on the other side of the river, it's also the place where Elijah commissioned Elisha and where the chariot of fire came and took him. And it's also the place where Moses was handing off to Joshua. Joshua took over. The people, the children of Israel, and marched them across the Jordan River when God parted the waters. And we'll see, if you have an interest in it, as you get to know the geography of Israel, you can see there's these connections not only between the meaning, but even in the places where things happen. And if you ever have the chance to go to Israel, you can kind of see these historical events lying on top on top of each other. And we also see then how John hands off. As I said, he already mentioned that Jesus was the Lamb of God, but he also compares himself to a bride and a bridegroom. And again, I mention this because it's a picture of how we work together. So if it's your wedding, you also have a best man. Why do you even need a best man? You could just have the bride and the groom up there.. But we don't. We have a best man and a maid of honor. Those provide support and they provide contrast. And John says, "The one who has the bride is the bridegroom," meaning Jesus is the one who deserves the honor. He gets the bride, which is the church. "But the friend of the bridegroom," he's speaking of himself, "who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice. Therefore this joy of mine is now complete." He must increase, but I must decrease. As part of his handover, he recognizes that Jesus is going to be taking over the authority and the fame and the following and whatnot, and that he's going to be basically set aside or taking a lesser role, and he's okay with that. And there's an application here in a minute that we'll see. But before, I want to just to also us to see that the whole Old Testament is like a forerunner to the whole New Testament, and that this is underpinning how we understand John to Jesus, we understand the Old Testament to the New Testament. And in the Gospel of John— this is the other John— he writes, saying, "There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. But he was not the light he came to bear witness." about the light. So that's pretty much the whole story of everything that John did and that he said and how we can understand him. But then the question is, what does that have to do with us? Okay, he helped Jesus a lot, but does John the Baptist help us? I mean, he's not really— he's not baptizing us, he's not pointing the finger at us, he's not giving us his— any endorsements. So what is the application?. And I feel like it's this. We also have forerunners in our lives. So just as John is to Jesus, this combination of the power of fruitfulness of a combination like that, we have those combinations in our lives too. And so I want to ask us to think back at who have been your forerunners. Now the obvious is your parents to children and children to their children is like the obvious forerunners. But I want to think beyond just parents and children. So we have, for example, we have mentors in our lives, or people who have come, you know, teachers, or uncles, or elders. And I'm thinking especially about Elder Xiangxiu Zhanglao, Xiangxiu, because he is, been our elder for many years, too many years to count. I think he could probably tell you how many years, but actually this is the last Sunday that he's officially still elder. He's going to turn— become emeritus starting on January 1st, which means he'll still be active in serving the community, but he won't have an official role in all the meetings. He's going to go into the back room as advisor. And so he's been a forerunner to this church. And I know he's touched some of your lives. I know he's touched mine because of the whole hiring process when early this year when I first got to know the church, I know he played a big role in that. And so I just thought we could take a moment to remember Hsiang and other forerunners, but I just wanted to recognize Hsiang today. Would you stand up just briefly for a moment and say, "Thank you, Mr. Forerunner." I asked Yang to share and reflect about his time as elder here, but he said, "Give me some time to think about it." So he'll sometime early next year, perhaps in February, we'll give him a time to share about his reflections being elder. So yes, we have forerunners in our lives who provided that kind of support that, that John did to, to Jesus and to reassurance. And we have stories. So part of the application is I'd like us first to remember those people and then also remember the stories and to share those stories, because some of those moments that we had forerunners that helped us, they can also be of service to each other. And I just wanted to share one. This happens to be from my father, but there was a time we went out to lunch when I was a teenager and my dad paid for the bill with his credit card. And then as he was signing the credit card, they used to have those, those chits. I guess they still have them, right? He wrote the letters P-E-R-S in parentheses. So he signed his name, then parentheses P-E-R-S. And I noticed that. I don't know why I was looking over his shoulder. I was like, Dad, what is What does P— what does purse mean? And he said, it's personal. And that means that this lunch that we're having is a personal expense. But he used his credit card, that the same credit card that gets reimbursed. So he was a lawyer, and he could easily have charged our lunch to the law firm because he could have just used his company credit card. But he didn't want to take advantage of his role, of his company credit card, so he put down personal so that they wouldn't deduct that. He wouldn't reimburse that. He would pay personally. And so that was an example to me so that later on, like when I had a company card and I had the same, you know, temptation going out for like a personal meeting and charge it to the company. But I was like, I wouldn't even think about doing that. Well, why wouldn't you? Nobody will know. Well, because I saw my dad do it. And so I just— it just kind of became like ingrained in me that you just don't do that sort of thing. And so unfortunately, a lot of us don't have forerunners that you've seen observed in that way. So maybe you would still be tempted to do that kind of thing. But you have your stories. So I'd like us to lean into those people who were our mentors and our forerunners and remember them and share their stories. But now even— Even beyond that, this is a more important application, is that you all, including myself, we all have the opportunity to be forerunners for other people, to share, to be that kind of support. Now, maybe at my age, I have this more on my mind than, than you do, because, you know, I even have grandkids, so I can think about all the ways that that I can support or help to find or single out people or to support them the same way that John did. But I think even you can, at whatever age, and I've observed, and I'm thinking one example is at the VBS. There was a VBS in the summer and we had a lot of like new volunteers, like guys that were, let's see, they were maybe 12. 12 and 13 years old that were for the first time, they were serving in the VBS. So like here they are in 6th grade, they're like in the— they're the students and then like a year or two later, now they're the helpers. Of course, they'd never helped anybody before and so they were like kind of like puppies running all over the lot. And so we had some high school guys that were sort of shepherding the shepherds, if you will. And so they were doing a great job of helping these younger guys to stay in line and to stay on the job. So that was an opportunity. For me, it was a great insight to see them doing that. Now if we're going to study how— we're looking now at John, a couple of incidents of John from the point of view of how can we imitate the way that he is being a forerunner. And so the first one I wanted to look at is when John meets Mary. So Mary's the mother of Jesus. When did John meet her? When he was still a fetus. So there's this amazing story that when Mary was pregnant, she went to visit her cousin Elizabeth. Elizabeth's pregnant with John. Mary's pregnant with Jesus. And when Mary walks into the room, it says, Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. You know, it did— you've seen that, of course, babies will move around a little bit or kick in their mother's belly. But this was described as the baby leaping in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed with a loud cry, Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And so what I want to take from this story, although you may think I'm reading into it a little bit, is just the celebration that John celebrated Jesus. And so I would— I take away that, for example, when we just stood up and greet each other, it's like we can like, hey, yay, hi Grace, hi Christina, hi Bonnie, how are you doing today? It's like we can jump and be happy when we see each other, just like John was happy when he met when he met Jesus for the first time, even though he couldn't see him. There was a— I don't know if I should go off on a tangent, but I'm just reminded about this. It was actually within a movie that some Christians were trying to pray for these non-Christians, and I won't tell you the whole background, but the people who were being prayed for, when they finally understood, oh, this Christianity is a really happy thing, it's good news, And so the one asked the other, well, how come they're so sad all the time? Because the Christians were praying, but their faces were all sad. So let's learn how to be joyful. So that was the impact on Mary. But even more important was John's impact on the Judeans. And to get this, we need to read this. This is the last scripture we'll look at this morning. Jesus began to speak to the crowds concerning John. This is after John passed away and Jesus is reflecting. What did you go out in the wilderness to see, a man dressed in soft clothing? No, it was a prophet. Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is he of whom it is written, behold, I send my messenger before your face who will prepare your way before you. I tell you, among those born of women, none is greater than John, yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he. Now look at this parenthesis: When all the people heard this, and the tax collectors too, they declared, God is just, he's, he's good, having been baptized with the baptism of John. But the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected the purpose of God for themselves, not having been baptized by him. In other words, the baptism of John kind of divided the people, divided them into two groups— those who were willing to be baptized, recognize this is from God, and those who said, oh, we don't need this, we don't want this, this is not from God, he doesn't have the right pedigree. So I wanted to visualize this, that we have like the old on the left here, Israel by birth. These are all the people who— they're, of course, they're like We're the chosen people. We're by our DNA. We're sons of Abraham, so we belong in this nation. This is the old people of God. But now there's, through this baptism, they're being divided into two groups. Those on the upper level here are those like the wheat and the chaff. These are the remnant. These are people willing to repent who recognize that they need God. But then the others are the 'Brood of vipers.' Those are the Pharisees, or the people who were so well-versed in the existing law and the existing rules in the system, they want nothing to do with it. And so John is warning. He's warning that if you are cut off, cutting yourself off from the baptism, and you're not going to be in the wheat, then when the harvest comes, you're going to be the chaff. And that's what ends up being burned in the fire. Now, a lot of times we'll read this and think it's talking about heaven and hell. But there's another application that's more immediate that's right there in the first century, that he's telling Israel is going to be basically torn down. It's going to be destroyed just 40 years— ends up being roughly 40 years later. And that the whole leadership, all the Pharisees and the priesthood and the temple, is going to be destroyed and cut down and burned. And there's going to be a new kingdom that's going to come out of Israel. It's going to be like invisible Israel or new Israel. So there's an immediate application. And we can see how the baptism is dividing the people. So likewise, if we're forerunners, one of our roles is to point people, point people in this direction, or to model what it means to walk in this direction. Now, if we want other people to be repentant, how do we do that? How do we encourage others to repent or to feel or to acknowledge God or to see their need for God? We can tell them, "You need God." Or we can show them we are repentant. We can model the repentance. And we can stay humble ourselves. And so if we want to be forerunners, that's one way to do it. And I'm thinking about like with my grandkids just this week. And the, you know, the kids do silly things and they act out, and it's not my job because I have a son. Their parents are supposed to take care of them, right? So I have to sit there and, and I know kind of what I should do, but I just have to let, let them do it. So that's also a form of humbling ourselves and staying out of it and let people do what they're supposed to do. So let's finish now with with a prayer. And I wanted to ask, Father, for your, your help, because we do have a desire to play the part in your family as you have placed us. And we desire to read your word and apply it in our lives. We thank you for all the great stories there, that we can imagine ourselves in those stories and how we can take away applications that we can be— remember the forerunners, the people who have played important roles in our lives, whether it's elders or teachers or parents or grandparents and uncles, and give thanks for them and recall the stories and the things that they've done for us. And I pray, Father, that that will give us strength and encouragement and will model for us how we too can take the opportunities that we get to, to model humility and to give our platform over, or the life we have, or our time and our attention, to celebrate the people that are coming after us, to strengthen them, and all for your glory. We pray this in Jesus' In Jesus' name, amen.

Cool. Great One, God Almighty. Through your Holy Spirit conceiving Christ the Son, Jesus our Savior. I believe in God our Father. I believe in Christ the Son. I believe in the Holy Spirit. Our God is three in one. I believe in the resurrection, that we will rise again. For I believe in the name of Jesus. Our judge and our defender suffered and crucified. Forgiveness is in you. Descended into darkness, you rose in glorious life. Forever seated high. I believe in God our Father. I believe in Christ the Son. I believe in the Holy Spirit. Our God is three in one. I believe in the resurrection, that we will rise again. For I believe in the name of Jesus. And I believe in you. I believe you rose again. I believe that Jesus Christ is Lord. And I believe in you, I believe you rose again, and I believe that Jesus Christ is Lord. Life eternal. I believe in the Virgin birth. I believe in the saints' communion and in your holy church. I believe in the resurrection when Jesus comes again. For I believe in the name of Jesus. I believe in God our Father. I believe in Christ the Son. I believe in the Holy Spirit. Our God is three in one. I believe in the resurrection, that we will rise again. For I believe in the name of Jesus. Jesus, for I believe in the name of Jesus.

You may be seated.

We have a few announcements today, and for any additional details on our announcements, please visit our website at emwcec.church. And do we have any new visitors? If you raise your hand, we have a small gift for you. All right, um, I will stop by and see you right after the service, give you a small gift. So, uh, small— apologize for the small print. Um, we have a few of our, um, normal activities this January. The Friday night youth group will be on January 3rd and 10th. It is at 7 PM. Our MomCo is going to be on January 7th and the 21st at 6 PM. These happen here at the chapel— we're sorry, at this side of the church. The Salt and Light Fellowship will also be on the 11th and 25th. It is a, uh, kind of a small group for Bible study, and that'll be at 4 PM here in the lounge right below the chapel here. The EMT, which is our English Ministry Team meeting, for those of us that are leaders and volunteers in English ministry, we will have a meeting on January 12th, right after our Sunday school. We'll have a time to grab lunch real quickly, and then the meeting will start at 12:15. And for those of you that would like to show support for our new ordained minister, uh, David Azal, he is going to be ordained on the 4th at 10 AM., and that will be in the main sanctuary. All right, please rise for doxology.

Please remain standing for the benediction from Ephesians chapter 1. May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the ones to come. Thank you for joining us this morning. I hope you can stay and hang out in the lounge right downstairs for a little while before you go off and enjoy the adult Sunday school down there at 11.

Thanks for coming.