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Good to see everyone who is able to come here to worship our God this morning. In Jesus' name, we begin today's worship. Recently, our sermon foresight has been on the wisdom of facing daily life, especially when we encounter sufferings. Sudden disasters, sometimes we know the cause, but sometimes we don't, like the one that forced on Job. In the year of 2020. Easy to remember this year. On the morning of the Thanksgiving Day, I fell from my bed to the floor. Thank God nothing happens to my body, so I went back to sleep. Almost 6 years later, on July 3rd this year, I fell on my bed again. This time I was not that lucky. I got some bruises, especially on my face and on my right elbow. Noticeably, my bruises is only 1 centimeter below my right eye. So all this happened while I was asleep, completely unconscious. I cannot thank God enough that the fall did not cause more serious injuries. Psalm 121:4 says, God keeps us day and night. He will neither slumber nor sleep. So that we can live our daily life in peace. Let us pray. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you. Thank you for protecting us day and night. Every time we come in and we go out, you are with us. You keep us away from evil things happen to us. May all the honors and the glories belong to you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Okay, good morning everyone. Could you all please rise and join us as we sing songs of praise to our Lord and Savior.

abundance flow.

Blessed be your name.

Blessed be your name. When I'm found in the desert place, though I walk through the wilderness, blessed be your name.

Every blessing you pour out, I'll turn back to praise.

When the darkness closes in, Lord, still I will We'll say blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be your name. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be your glorious name.

Blessed be your name.

When the sun is shining down on me, when the world's all as it should be, blessed be your name.

Blessed be.

Blessed be your name on the road marked with suffering. Though there's pain in the offering, blessed be your name.

Every blessing—

every blessing you pour out, I'll turn back to praise. When the darkness closes in, Lord, still I will say, blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be your name. Blessed be your name. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be your glory, O his name. You give and take away.

You give and take away.

My heart will choose to say, Lord, blessed be your name.

You give and take away. You give and take away.

My heart will choose to say—

Lord blessed be your name!

Blessed be the Name of the LORD; blessed be Your glory I'll sing. Blessed be the Name of the LORD; bless it by His grace.

And let all who fear Him praise him forevermore. Name of the Lord.

Blessed be your glory.

I just say—

Sing, I love you, Lord.

I love you, Lord. Oh, your mercy never fails me. And all my days I've been held in your hands. From the moment that I wake up until I lay my head, oh, I will sing of the goodness of God. And all my life you have been faithful. And all my life you have been so, so good. With every breath that I am able, oh, I will sing of the goodness of God. I love your voice. You have led me through the fire. In darkest night, you are close like no other. I've known you as a father, and I've known you as a friend. And I have lived in the goodness of God. Sing all my life. And all my life you have been faithful. And all my life you have been so, so good. With every breath that I am able, oh, I will sing of the goodness of God. It's your goodness. Your goodness is running after, it's running after me. Your goodness is running after, it's running after me. With my life laid down in surrender now, I give you everything. Your goodness is running after, it's running after me. And all my life you have been faithful. Yes, you have. All my life you have been so, so good. With every breath that I am able, oh, I will sing of the goodness of God. Sing all my life again. And all my life you have been faithful. And all my life you have been so, so good. With every breath that I am able, oh, I will sing of the goodness of God. Sing your goodness. Your goodness is running after, it's running after me. Your goodness is running after, it's running after me. With my life laid down, surrender now, I give you everything. Your goodness is running after, it's running after me. Keep singing that. Your goodness is running after, it's Is running after me. Your goodness is running after, is running after me. With my life laid down, surrender now, I give you everything. Your goodness is running after, is running after me. Sing All My Life one more time. And all my life you have been faithful. And all my life you have been so, so good. With every breath that I am able, oh, I will sing of the goodness of God. Oh, I will sing of the goodness of God.

Amen.

Sing worthy of every song.

Worthy of every song we could ever sing. Worthy of all Worthy of every breath we could ever breathe. Worthy of every breath we could ever breathe.

We live for you.

Sing Jesus, the name above.

Jesus, the name above every other name. Jesus, the only one who could ever save. Worthy of every breath we could ever breathe. We live for you. No, we live for you. And holy, and holy, there is no one like you. There is none beside you. Open up my eyes in wonder and show me who you are. You are. And fill me with your heart and lead me in your love to those around me.

Sing worthy. Worthy of every song.

Worthy of every song we could ever sing. Worthy of all the praise we could ever bring. Worthy of every breath we could ever breathe. We live for you. We live for you, Jesus. Jesus, the name above every other name. Jesus, the only one No one you could ever save. Worthy of every breath we could ever breathe. We live for you. Oh, we live for you. Holy, holy, there is no one like you. There is none beside you. Open up my eyes in wonder and shock. Show me who you are and fill me with your heart and lead me in your love to those around me.

Come on, we declare, I will build my life.

And I will build my life. Upon your love, it is a firm foundation. And I will put my trust in you alone, and I will not be shaken. And I will build my life upon your love. —it is a firm foundation. And I will put my trust in you alone, and I will not— you are holy, holy. There is no one like you. There is none beside you. Open up my eyes my eyes in wonder and show me who you are and fill me with your heart and lead me in your love to those— you are holy, and holy, there is no one like you, there is none beside you. Open up my eyes in wonder and show Show me who you are and fill me with your heart and lead me in your love. And I will build my life, and I will build my life upon your love. It is a firm foundation, and I will put my trust in you. In you alone, and I will not be shaken. And I will build my life upon your love. It is a firm foundation, and I will put my trust in you alone. And I will not be shaken.

Can we sing that one more time?

I will build my life upon your love. It is a firm foundation. And I will put my trust in you alone. And I will—

Let's bow our heads in prayer.

Lord, we come before you this morning just thankful for who you are and what you've done for us. Lord, we just want to sing how holy and wonderful and worthy you are of all of our praise, Lord. Lord, we could spend the rest of our lives, lives proclaiming that and barely even scratch the surface of your worth. That's how meaningful, how important, how powerful how powerful and worthy you are, Lord. So again, once we come before you as a body of believers, Lord, as the church, would you empower us to live out these words that we've just proclaimed, Lord, that we might be able to truly build our lives upon the firm foundation that is our rock and cornerstone, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. That we can only love as he loved because you first loved us, Lord. So let that be our foundation. Let that be our example today, that we might be empowered to go out, to love one another here, and to love one another outside of these walls, that we might be a light unto this world, a light and an anchor for this world that so desperately needs you, Lord. So again, Lord, as we come before you today, would you fill us up, empower us to do that? Would you remind us of your great love once again? Men, so that we can live our lives out of that love and live our lives empowered. Help us to find rest in you this morning, Lord. We thank you so much for your presence, so much for your love, so much for your sacrifice. And in Jesus' name we pray, amen. Before you're seated, could you please spend a few minutes and greet those around you? And then also for the parents, uh, it would be now for for you to bring the kids out to the nursery.

Well, it's nice to see happy faces and to hear your chattering. I wish that could go on for a while, but before the scripture reading, we're going to have a testimony. So if you can go back to just that cross there, that would be good. I served in mainland China just as a volunteer in the church for many years, and at one At one point, Stacy and I worked in this Chinese church, a Three-Self Chinese church, and we actually managed the English service within a larger Chinese church. And we could not be called Pastor, Elder, Deacon because in that institutional church they had official titles for the official people. So we were like co-workers. But if you speak Chinese, you know that everybody has a title. You can't avoid it. So either you call someone by name or you're calling them an engineer or their— whatever their— it's very important what you call people and it kind of sets up the relationship. So I had to be called something, so they called me Kang Lao Shi, which means Teacher Kang. And I thought that was perfect because it had enough— as you know, teachers in Chinese society are well respected, so people will pay pay attention at least a little, but it's— there's a lot of them, so you're not really setting yourself up too high in front of everybody or above everybody else. So that power distance is set. Well, the reason I mention that is when we came here to serve, or as you've noticed perhaps in any Chinese church, there is a bit of a distinction between who are the pastors and the elders, the deacons, the deacons, the co-workers, and so far I haven't met any teachers. So everyone has a title in Chinese. That's not a problem. The problem is in the English ministry. So what are we going to do with those? So for example, if I introduce Michael in the Chinese congregation, I wouldn't fail to say, "And now Elder Michael will come," or, "Now we're going to have Elder Emeritus is going to come and say something, right? You would never introduce them without including that title. But in the English, I could just say, "Come on up, Michael," right? We're more informal. So why I'm mentioning all of this is if you noticed in our bulletin or sometimes from the front, whenever someone referred to me, they called me Minister Paul or Minister Condrell, especially in the Chinese service. And the And the reason is very clear in Chinese, because in Chinese there's one word for pastor and another word for minister. Those are not interchangeable. A pastor is kind of what we would say in English is reverend. So someone is called Reverend So-and-so, that's because they've been ordained in a church. Ordained means you're a reverend. And in Chinese, this reverend in English means pastor. So if you haven't been ordained in a Chinese church, you can't be called pastor because you haven't been— just like for the same reason that you wouldn't be called a reverend. And so what that exposes is that I have not been ordained. And one reason I haven't been ordained is I was never professionally trained for the pastorate. Is that the word? Because I had a separate career first in business. So what I did when I came to this church, I was not qualified. In fact, in the job description it says you must have either a degree in M.Div., the Master's of Divinity, or equivalent. And so I scratched my head, I wonder if what I have is equivalent. Well, mm, not quite. So after I arrived, or during the interview process, they made it very clear they expected me to complete the education requirements requirement while at work. It's like on-the-job training, and I agreed to do that. And so today I can share good news with you, which is I have now completed my Master's of Ministry Studies at Moody Bible Institute. Woo-hoo! And why that is important is it means I am now at least better qualified for this place. And it means that I may be ordained at the end of the year. It's sort of on track. There are several steps still to go. There has to be a vote. There has to be a defense, a committee of pastors at the Chinese churches nearby are going to interview me, put me through these hoops. And if that all goes well, I may be ordained in January, at which point you can call me pastor. And we can get rid of all the awkward minister. Well, that's the good news. But the bad news is poor James. James, he still has to be minister a little bit longer. Are you here, James, or are you with the kids? James is still in the minister process, so he is going to be ordained. He has to wait in line, so he's coming after me. And he will also be finishing up a few of his courses. He has a master's degree, but there's different master's levels. So he has this level of— he's like 2/3 of his way towards the M.Div., and he'll be working working on that over the next couple of years. So soon you will also be able to call him Pastor. But none of us really care about that. You just call him James. You can call me Paul. So that's how we like to be informal. But because we're in a Chinese church, I just wanted to mention that. And what is ordination anyway and why is it important? I want you to know there's 3 reasons why. When I told Paul Lu, he said, "You need to continue your studies to be ordained." I said, "Well, what if we just "Skip it. Skip the studies and skip the ordained. I'll just be minister forever. I've been teacher before. I don't care." And he said, "No, it's not for you. It's for everybody. It's for the church." I was like, I couldn't quite get it right away, but now I do. And so I want to share that ordination, what it means is a commitment, first of all, on 3 levels. It's between me and God. It's telling God, "Okay, I'm not going to just have a side business going, or when I'm awake in the night watches, I'm not thinking about, "Hmm, how can I expand our income?" or something. That's not it anymore. That my full focus and career, if you will, this focus on what God is doing. So that's the first step. And the second one is between me and the congregation. You can know that I'm committed to this church, to this household, to God, and to representing him. That is my second commitment. And the third is to myself. So when I am, you know, alone, the integrity that I need to match is expected as being ordained is different. It's just more out there. It's a commitment to God and to you and to myself. So that's why I decided, okay, I'm going to go through that process. And the last thing I'll share is that I liked this program at Moody so much that I'm wanting to take more courses starting in the fall that are so-called doctorate level. And I'm going to be just dabbling in those doctorate courses. And if they go well, I may continue to study for another year or two. And I hope that that will bring benefits to this congregation. I can tell you more about that later. And so I just want to say thank you for your support. Your support in this process and your putting up with all these changes in honorifics. So that is my testimony today. Now before I pause for the scripture reading, I just want to say thank you to the worship team for a truly amazing job. Darren, for joining and for— I don't know, some of you already know Bonnie is studying percussion at University of Delaware, so she's really brought a lot of energy energy to that. That's really amazing. And Jonathan's selection of songs is really— it's too bad that you didn't get the sermon first and then the songs, because then you would see the overlapping areas. So I'm really looking forward to seeing how that will help set the stage for today's sermon. So thank you, Jonathan. And Sarah brings a lot of harmonies. Sometimes if she's singing the melody, it allows Jonathan to do the harmonies. Harmony or the other way around. I don't know about you, but for me, like my whole— the way my body works, like the vibrations that are created with human voices singing in harmony is something very special. So thank you, guys. All right. Next is scripture reading. Good morning.

I'm going to be reading from Ecclesiastes chapters 3 and 12. Is this supposed to be on? No. All right, thank you, Henry. I'm just gonna start. For everything there is a season. A time for every activity under the sun— under heaven. A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to harvest. A time to kill and a time to heal. A time to tear down and a time to build up. A time to cry and a time to laugh. A time to grieve and a time to dance. A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones. A time to embrace and a time to turn away. A time to search and a time to quit searching. A time to keep and a time to throw away. A time to tear and a time to mend. A time to be quiet and a time to speak. A time to love and a time to hate. There's a time for war and a time for peace. What do people really get for all their hard work. I have seen the burden God has placed on us all. Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart. But even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God's work from beginning to end. So I concluded there is nothing better than to be happy and enjoy ourselves as long as we can. And people should eat and drink and enjoy the fruits of their labor, for these are the gifts of God. Now honor your Creator in your youth before you grow old and say life is not pleasant anymore. Remember him before the light of the moon and sun and stars is dim in your old eyes and rain clouds continually darken your sky. Remember him before your legs start to tremble, before your shoulders stoop. Remember him before your teeth stop grinding, before your eyes see dimly. Remember him before the door to life's opportunities is closed and the sound of work fades. Now you rise at the first chirping of the birds, but then all their sounds will grow faint. Remember him before you become fearful of falling and worry about danger in the streets, before your hair turns white like an almond tree and you drag along without energy like a dying The Flying Grasshopper. Remember him before you near the grave, your everlasting home, when the mourners will weep at your funeral, for then the dust will return to the earth and the spirit will return to God who gave it. Yes, remember your creator now while you are young.

Thank you. That was my son Eber, in case you didn't know why we look so much like. We're in the book of Ecclesiastes, which if you're reading through the Bible for the first time, it really grabs you because it's so unlike every other book. It's very pondering and meandering. It's a philosophy. It's like an old man's ramblings. And so it really— well, because I'm kind of an old man that likes to ramble too, I guess it— for me, it's really fascinating, and I hope you'll have a chance to read it. We'll be spending the next 2 weeks in this book. But one of the themes that comes out these 2 times in the 2 passages that we just read are about time and what it's all about. So I'm going to have 2 takes on this time, like first half and second half for this message. And the first, as you heard about those famous lines, "For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven." The first aspect of time we're going to discuss is the seasonality, how it changes. Something we might do in one season we would never do in another and vice versa. And I want to take illustrations from the Bible because those are stories that we all know well and will continue to ponder. I mean, there's a lot of personal stories, but I want to mostly focus on what the Bible is saying. Now the book is understood to be written by by Solomon. Everybody traditionally believes it's written by Solomon. Now this is not an actual photograph, but it is a beautiful painting of a wise old king, and he had lived— if anyone lived a good life, it was Solomon, without getting into his peccadilloes. So the seasonality, as you know, there are certain seasons you wouldn't wear— you wear different things. You might even eat different The light in the sky is for different amounts of time. So it's up to us. It's very simple common sense, right? We discern the times and we act accordingly. If it's harvest season and we don't harvest, what'll happen? We'll get hungry around February or March. And if you're an animal and it's mating season, that's your time to do it. Otherwise, you're not gonna have any young ones to propagate the species. So let's look at a few Bible stories and see how these people had to rise up to an occasion and decide what is the season and what should I do about it. And the first is a story you probably know, but maybe not, and that is you've heard of King David and King Saul. So King Saul was the first king of the United Israel, and then King David was anointed to take his place. But Saul was still alive. He was still king. So Saul had already been— he was on the outs, but he was still king. And so there's this tension between the two. And David was actually on the run, and Saul was looking to kill him because he got the idea that David was going to replace him. So David, while he was on the run, there was this incident where Saul was asleep in his camp, and David and his men were able to go in, and he had the knife right on a sleeping Saul. He had penetrated through the defenses. And his bodyguard said, "Let's get him. Now's our chance. Kill him." But David said, "No." He said, "God can kill Saul soon enough. God will decide when to kill him. I'm not going to touch the Lord's anointed." And he decided, even though he knew he was ordained to be king, it was not his time just yet. And then he took instead a little piece of garment off of Saul's clothing, and then later across the stream he was able to show— he confronted Saul the next day and said, "See, I could have cut your neck, but I only cut your cloak because I have no intent. I don't mean you any evil intent." So by discerning that timing, he was a very powerful powerful way of communicating his love for Saul. The other story is about David's son, whose name was Absalom. You might know that if you know the story of Absalom, you know he had very unusual hair. It was so unusual, it was like the focus practically of the whole story. Now, Absalom took the exact opposite view. We just watched David delaying the day of his elevation to king. But Absalom, what you could say, was in line to be king. He was one of the king's oldest sons. He had many wives. But he did the opposite. Instead of waiting, he didn't wait. While David was still alive, he rose up in rebellion and he forced David right out of Jerusalem. And while he was there, he took over the palace, he took over all the advisers. Advisors. And one of David's best advisors' name was Ahithophel. And in the first meeting they had of all the king's advisors, Ahithophel advised Absalom, "Let's go tonight. You send me, I'll bring an army, we're going to go after David, we're going to get him because he's on the run. I'm going to kill David, and we'll bring back everybody else, and it'll be a party, and you'll be king." But then another advisor stood up and he said, "This time Ahithophel has made a mistake." And if you read what— the Bible says that Ahithophel's words were like the words of God. Everybody— he was like the number one advisor. And yet Ahithophel was able to turn the tide because Ahithophel was— excuse me, Hushai, the second advisor, was more loyal to David. "Ahithophel's made a mistake. I advise that you mobilize the entire army of Israel." Israel, which is going to take some time, and that you, Absalom, personally lead the troops, neither he nor any of his men will be left alive. We'll get all those guys. And he confused Absalom. He took his eye off the prize. And if you remember what happened, that famous hair during the battle that ensued got tangled in a low-hanging branch. This is what happens to me when I try to mow the grass too close to the trees. You got to go in and trim those branches. And he got his hair stuck in there, and then one of David's generals came through and put him to death. That was the result of the timing. Who knows what would have happened if Ahithophel— excuse me, if Absalom had just been unwilling to wait. So that's the consequences of not knowing the right time. Now I just want to do one little illustration right here from our church. If some of you probably remember that a year ago, I think it was August or September, we announced that we were going to change the time of our service from 9:30 to 11:00. And we're going to do it during the month of October as an experiment. And that's a pretty big change because it affects so many. As you know, we have this other sister congregation going on over there. Is there going to be enough parking? What about Sunday school? And there was a lot of questions that were stirred up by this plan. And so it was my idea. I won't give you the whole background, but just to tell you enough of it, it was my idea and I'd pass it through the elders and we'd gone through the deacons weekends, and it was just for experimental purposes. Just for a month, we're not going to change it forever, just a month. And everybody's, "Uh-huh, okay, I guess if it's just an experiment." That's the Chinese culture, you can get away with a lot if it's just on an experimental basis. Well, we were ready to go and then we started to think, we started to hear about, "Uh-oh, what about this, what about this, what about that?" And we're like, "Mm, there are some problems with this plan, even on an experimental basis, it could be more trouble than it's worth. So we pulled the plug by, I guess it was probably middle September. And then people are like, hey, what about the new time? There is no more new time. So we had to go back on it. And in retrospect, that was the right thing to do. There was just too many— it wasn't worth it. Well, now we have another opportunity or possibility of moving our service, instead of moving the ahead of time moving the place. And instead of meeting here in this room, we could meet down in the main sanctuary. But that, I mean, we don't have to. We're just, everything's okay here unless we got more full. But it's the sort of thing that we could do ahead of time or we could do whenever we want. So I just want you to know that we're thinking about it and that's another one of those things. Is this the right time? Maybe we should do it next year. Maybe we should do it in January. Maybe we should do it when we must do it. Instead of being proactive. So this is another example of how these timing issues are huge. And it's not a matter of right or wrong. It's a matter of weighing in the balance. So there is another famous story that my sons know so very well because I've shared this with them over and over and over, which is the ascent of Rehoboam to the throne, the son of Solomon. So Solomon, the wisest king, right? United the kingdom— he didn't unite it, but he kept it united and made it very prosperous. But then his son Rehoboam took over, and his first day on the job, all of the northern states— it was like a civil war was being threatened because the northern states came down to Jerusalem and said, "Lower our taxes!" And he said, "Give me 3 days to think about it." So he, of course, called all the advisers together, got all Solomon's old advisers together, and they And he said, "Yep, it's time to lower taxes because they've been really high for a long time, but Solomon built ports and he acquired horses and now we don't need the money anymore. So it's okay to lower them." But then, that wasn't good enough, he didn't like that answer, so he asked his palace buddies, the guys that have been hanging out. He's like 19, right? And so he's got his 19-year-old buddies and they get together and they say, "Should we lower taxes?" And he says— and they say, "No, don't lower taxes." Taxes? Why, we should raise them! And so that's what he decided to do. And there he is announcing his decision. You think Solomon, my dad's taxes were high? I'll show you what's high. And what happened was the northern states walked out, and indeed the Civil War was begun that never ended. Those two, the so-called United Kingdom became a divided kingdom and was never united again. And it's an example. I always gave to my sons is don't always listen to the young guys. Listen a little bit to the old guys. At least give them a chance. And another famous story of timing is you all know this quote from the Book of Esther, where this lovely Israel— Hebrew Judean girl had been elevated to become queen through this very convoluted process that you should all know this story. If you don't, go home Come and read the book of Esther. It's even better than the book of Ecclesiastes. And so she's queen, and she's just biding her time in the palace when suddenly there's a massive crisis, and the Judean people are under threat. And her adopted father says, we need you to speak up to the king. But that was like— not only was it illegal, it was death penalty to show up in front of the king without being invited. But she faced a decision. Is this the time to speak up? As we read in the scripture, there's a time to speak up, but there's also a time to remain silent. How is she gonna decide? The Bible says both are right. Sometimes it's right to speak up, sometimes right to silent. Well, I thought the Bible solves our problems. Mm, who told you that? It sets up the problem, it shows the path, but we still I don't have to, that's what the Spirit is for, right? So she spent 3 days praying and fasting. She had all of her friends and then the father, all of their friends to pray and fast and then she decided to go for it. So let's just summarize this first, this quality of time being the seasonality with this verse from the New Testament where Paul says, "Let's not get tired of doing what is good." At just the right time, we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don't give up. So that's what we will do. So let's go on to the second half, the value of time. And we read in the second passage that Eva read from Ecclesiastes 12, "Remember your Creator now in your youth, before you grow old and say life is not pleasant anymore." Now I'm sure you've all watched sporting contests like basketball game, football game. Have you ever noticed that in the last 2 minutes the time sort of like suddenly stands still and everybody is like concentrating, they're all looking at the clock, and in fact in basketball they start measuring tenths of seconds, not just seconds. And so the time suddenly becomes— managing the clock becomes very important. And if you're the coach of a team in the last 2 minutes, what do What do you do? You call timeout, right? Because in that moment of stress, you need to think about what's going on, right? You might have to change players, change plays, get your strategy together, talk to your players, get them on the bench and let's— together and let's decide what are we going to do next. You got to call timeout. And so how many timeouts you have is really important at the end. And if you're out of timeouts, That's trouble, because then the whoosh, the time will drift away and you lose. So what if you're God? How does God call a timeout? Duh, that's what the Sabbath is. He calls a timeout every single week right from the very beginning. God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy because it was the day when he rested from all his work of creation. Rest also means to cease, to stop. In some connotations, the word is to sit down or to dwell, translated in different ways. So during the Sabbath, just like we're doing right now— I mean, you guys are already doing it, so I'm not telling you anything you don't know— this is our time to get together, to together with the Spirit to— just like a coach would do— to take some advice and to take a break and get the rest we need for this rest of the time that we have. And what do we do on the Sabbath? Just like we did now. One thing we do is get together in the courts. This is the Old Testament courts that David's describing. Better is one day in your courts than a thousand— el elsewhere. And here is a lovely picture of the ancient band getting together and blowing music and singing their hearts out. Now, if any of you have ever stood up here and played in a worship team, it's wonderful to look out at all the faces of people singing. Am I right, Jonathan? The people who are singing their hearts out to the Lord, and you get to watch them do I love it. It's really fun. So I'm sure God is enjoying it too. That's what I think. He's not necessarily looking at our faces, but he sees our attitude of heart as we come together to rejoice. And so music and this sharing time, and I was describing this harmony of the voices, this is something that just can really give us a great lift. It's transcendent. And for me personally, I like to do four-part harmony you know, harmony and like sing hymns without any instruments, this is like my idea. If I could do anything for, you know, an hour, let's get together and sing hymns a cappella. It is truly transcendent. And the punctuation mark is when we get to sing amen at the end of the hymn. And if the harmony is right on the amen, it's great. And we have this joke and we had a prayer meeting time in China where we would say, "Amen, amen." Amen. And everybody has to say, "Ah." And then you could direct the amen with your fingers. Amen. And then when you take your fingers off, the N is the end of the N. You get it? Amen. Anyway, it's just beautiful moments. And that's what being in God's courts is like. But that's corporately. But then we also have opportunity to have this quality time time with God individually. And this is what David describes in Psalm 1 as meditating on his word day and night. And we will be like a tree planted by rivers of water that bring forth fruit in its season. Now, there's someone who did this very well, evidently, although what we know about him is just boiled down into one sentence. It says, Enoch lived 365 years, walking in close fellowship with God. It doesn't describe exactly how he did it, what he did, but we know that this— he must have been very good at that kind of communion and communication with God. Someday we'll be able to ask him about it. But I feel like this quality time is— everybody knows about the 5 love languages, right? Well, I feel like God's love language is quality time. And that could happen together or as individuals. So I was reflecting at some— how I feel this, especially my high moments. Like we talk in the church about highs and lows. For me, one of the highs spiritually is when God answers a prayer and you just get so— especially if it happens in some kind of convoluted way, just You just get so exhilarated because you didn't— when you prayed it, you weren't really sure it was going to happen. You didn't really count on it. But then when it does, you just get so excited. And I was recalling how there's this servant of Abraham who was put on a mission to find a wife for Isaac. And he had to travel halfway across the known world at the time. And he was looking for this particular family, the family of Abraham's father, to find a cousin of Isaac's to be his wife. But he didn't know the first thing about the area, the language, the people. He was just a stranger with a bunch of camels. So he shows up, he gets to this well, and he says this prayer. He says, "God, I don't know what I'm doing here, but I'm in a hurry to get home. Just by some miracle, would you please show me who the girl is?" And as he he's finished speaking, this Rebekah happens to show up at the well, and Elimelech sees her. He says, God, if she's the one, ask her to water not only her animals, water my animals. Put her to a test. It's kind of like a fleece. If she just waters her animals and goes home, that's not the one. But if she waters her animals and then offers to water my animals, that's she's the one. And so sure enough, Rebekah says, sir, would you like some water? How about your camels? And he's just like, ah, so excited. God answered his prayer. Now I know all of you have had that experience, because you— but if you haven't, I urge you, pray more. Put God to the test. He says so in Malachi. And see what happens. Now another place I feel like I can experience quality time with God is out in nature. And I know all of you have had this experience as well. And the picture I found here is just when you're out on a beautiful night with all the stars. Now this, as you can tell, this is Abraham who while out in nature and while looking at all the stars had a special message. A message from God, what he could call an aha moment. That was such a big aha moment, it's written in Genesis 12 and is there to this day about what those stars represented in terms of promise towards Abraham. But these are moments that are accessible to us to just go out to the park, go outside, go out and breathe in and have quality time with God. Another way that I feel this is in good conversation with a friend or even somebody that's new. "A cheerful heart is good medicine, and the counsel of friends delights the heart." So this is one way we can enjoy God's quality time. And as we also just read in the Scripture, one way is eating and drinking, which is why we pray for every meal. Right? We pray for every meal. We say thank you. And we— the variety of food, and the— it's amazing how God has designed that whole system. And in our prayers, we acknowledge that we are dependent. We didn't raise those fish. We didn't plant all those— all the corn and all the spices and ship them around and put it all together. So we we give thanks. But you may be remembering, hey, wait a minute, isn't there a scripture in the New Testament where Jesus condemns a rich fool who had enough grain that he had harvested, that he said, oh, I got enough for many years, I'll just build bigger barns, and I'll eat, drink, and be merry, remember? So what's the difference? Well, this guy isn't depending on God, he's not giving he's depending on his savings and he's going lazy because of it. So it's a completely different attitude even though the action looks the same, it's really not. Now this is a story of things going wrong where Hezekiah got sick. He was the king of Israel and he got this terrible disease. And they sent for the prophet Isaiah to help. But when Isaiah got there, what did he say? "Sorry to tell you, set your affairs in order, you're going to die." Hezekiah heard this and he prayed, "Remember, O Lord, I've been faithful to you." And then he broke down and he He wept bitterly. He had it all, and suddenly he was going to have nothing. Now, I know perhaps some of you read about, "Oh, Hezekiah, he's kind of weak, right? He's a crybaby?" No, that's right. He's not a crybaby. He was king. And when I read this— so I don't know if you've had this experience, but I had cancer. Diagnosed with melanoma, which is an aggressive form of skin cancer. It was on my finger. Fortunately now it's been eradicated. It was cut off and so I'm fine. But for 2 weeks, I didn't know because of the problem with the sample. I didn't know how serious it was. And I had 2 children, age 3 and 5, and I was like, I didn't know if I had how many years left or what, or what stage it was. And I remember during those— it was 2 weeks and I traveled to the US to get a second opinion outside Washington, DC from a cancer center. And I went to a church I'd never been there before because I was a visitor, but I had to go to some church, right? So I went into this church and they offered, they said, "Okay, we're going to have this song and if you have any special prayer needs, you can come down in front of the altar." altar. Some of you have heard me say this before. And they started playing this song, I think it's called Breathe, and it goes, I'm desperate for you, I'm lost without you. And I just started bawling. I just couldn't— I just said, okay, I'm gonna go down to the altar. I have never done that before in my life. Why would I go down the altar? I'm good. But not this day. So I went down to the altar in front of this church I'd never I've never met a single person there, and they're playing this song, and I'm just— I am weeping bitterly because I'm— my kids, I mean— well, I don't know how many minutes went by while I was— and one of these young women that's like their prayer helpers came alongside and said, "Lord, I don't know this man. I don't know what he needs, but, you know, take care of him." them, or, you know, she said a prayer. It didn't stop me. I just kept right on weeping bitterly. And I don't know how many minutes went by, but this old lady then came alongside me, because I was down on the floor. And so she came down and she said, "Son, you're just going to have to trust God." And I looked up at her, and then I looked over at the band, and everybody in the band is all staring at me like wondering, When is this guy going to be over and we can stop playing the same chorus over and over? And so I shook out of my stupor, and I got up and went back. And then I left that church, and I never saw them again. But it changes the way I read Hezekiah. And so, son, you just have to trust God. What would Jesus have thought, who knew the story of Hezekiah, who's also facing his— the sand is going through the sand, the hourglass, and it's disappearing? Take this cup away if it is possible. But he knew, just as we read, there is a time to die, and it was his last last hours. And Jesus managed to use that time so well. If you plot what he was doing very deliberately in everything that he did and said, even when he was in the custody of soldiers, because God had a plan. And he finally said, "It is finished." And that's when, miracle of miracles, God's plan came to pass when he raised Jesus from the dead and he walked out of that grave. Hallelujah! I never met Tim Watkins, but I knew his sister. His sister served with us in the church in China, and her brother— Tim was her older brother— And Tim was serving in Iraq when his Jeep passed over a landmine and blew up and he died, age 24. It was a terrible tragedy and she really missed him. But what— the reason I'm mentioning it today is that Rachel's dad is a pastor in California, or he was at the time, and he came out to China to visit his daughter, Rachel. And I was— it was on my mind to talk to the dad. I wanted to get him alone and see— to try to learn from him how he handled this experience and what was it like. And finally that moment came and I asked him, I said, "Sir, I know about Tim and I'm very sorry for your loss." I don't know what I expected him to say, but he He kind of had a half smile. He said, "You know, we had him for 24 years." He remembered what a blessing the life of his son and all that he meant to his family for 24 years. Wasn't that great? Because we all have a limited amount of time, and you don't know how much. So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom and walk in wisdom, making the best use of the time. Let's pray. Father, it just never ceases to amaze me how rich and wonderful your word is, that just one chapter or one section or one small story can be the, the start of so much contemplation or application to our lives today. I praise you for that word, and I thank you that it's been translated and preserved, and that we have time to meditate on it, to discuss, and to consider all that it means. I ask for wisdom as we all discern seasons in our our lives and our opportunities to do things and to refrain from doing things. And pray that we will get advice from each other and offer it, but always balance it. And remember to enjoy quality time with others, but with you especially, whether it's in prayer or in nature or in music. In eating and drinking, in meditation. We need your help, so thank you for providing it. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.

Okay, could you all please rise and join us as we sing a song of reflection?

It was my cross you bore so I could live in the freedom you died for. And now my life is yours, and I will sing of your goodness forevermore. Worthy is your name, Jesus. You deserve the praise. Worthy is Your name, worthy is your name, Jesus. You deserve the praise, worthy is your name. We'll sing of your goodness forevermore. Worthy is your name, Jesus, and you deserve the praise. Worthy is your name, worthy is your name, Jesus, and you deserve the praise. Worthy is your name. Lord, we just love to sing of your worthiness this morning, and as we continue to sing, I pray that your Spirit would, uh, just move and just fill in us and refresh us and remind us of your goodness. Let's sing. <LYRICS>Be exalted now in the heavens as your glory fills this place. You alone deserve our praise. You're the name above all names. Be exalted now in the heavens as your glory fills this place.</LYRICS> You alone deserve our praise. You're the name above all names and be exalted now in the heavens as your glory fills this place. You're the— you alone deserve our praise. You're the name above all names and be exalted now in the heavens as your glory fills this place. You alone deserve our praise. praise. You're the name above all names, and worthy is your name, Jesus. You deserve the praise. Worthy is your name, worthy is your name, Jesus. You deserve the praise. Worthy is your name.

Amen. You may be seated. Thank y'all for the response hymn, and also Paul, thanks for Thank you for sharing that story about the melanoma on your finger. I'd heard details, but I didn't hear the story about the prayer in D.C. when you're visiting or when you were coming for a second opinion. I have handed out some visitor's cards to visitors, and both of them said they would like to introduce themselves. But if I missed anybody, if you're here for the first time, you don't have to introduce yourself. Yes, and Dwight, there's somebody raising their hand. If you could get— Oh wait, somebody else. Yeah. I don't see who— I don't see where they are, but if they'll raise their hand, we can get the visitor's card to them. Okay. Yeah. And then— so Peter, if you'd introduce yourself and your mom, you can stand up and just say hello to the congregation.

Good morning, everyone.

My name is Pete. Long time former New York resident. This is my mom. She still lives in New York. I live in Atlanta. Great to worship with you guys.

Yeah. I was telling Pete that his dad was a scientist at DuPont, and I still run into his reports sometimes. So a small world. Yeah, and I'd heard about— He lived in Guangzhou. Oh, and also lived in Guangzhou and knew the Condrells, right? Yeah. Yeah, so, yeah, the small world. And the other person, I don't know your name, but yeah, if you could introduce yourself. Well, Nick and Iris, welcome. And with the visitor's card, you can either hand it to me or hand it to Paul. We'll, you know, we can put you on our mailing list if you'd like. So beyond that, could you go to the next slide? Wednesday, each Wednesday, talking about prayer that Paul mentioned. We can't tell if anybody's on their face on the floor, but we invite you to join us if you would like for the prayer circle. We get details sent out with the monthly bulletin, the weekly bulletin each week. We meet on Zoom. And maybe sometime this summer, I was thinking about this, and sorry I didn't mention this, Paul, but we have this great place outside, here at the campus where we could actually meet sometime and pray. We could actually also be meeting on Zoom at the same time, but, you know, we should take advantage of the time in the season. So then next Sunday, the adults here will be the cooks. We'll be cooking for the congregation. So in the first hour, it's pretty easy. I don't know the number of people needed, but in the second hour It's very intense. We also need people to hang out after lunch to help with cleanup. So just keep that in mind for the adults. And then the Vacation Bible School is at those dates. If you're still interested, I didn't get a chance to talk to Ching Lee, but the registration date has actually ended yesterday. But she still might be able to squeeze you in if you're still interested. Just talk to me or talk to Paul and we'll get you set up for that. I think that's the last slide, so if you would please stand. At the end we always sing this song to praise God, so if you would please rise.

What a beautiful Sunday. I was thinking about my own season of life, and I just— what a joy and a blessing, and full of chaos it is raising kids. But whatever season of life you are in right now, may God fill your days with joy, and may you glorify him in each and every moment. Please go in peace. Amen.