[SPEAKER_00]: You are listening to audio from Citizens Church located in Plano, Texas for more information about this ministry or to give to this ministry Please visit citizenschurch.com Hey man, thank you Kelsey.
[SPEAKER_00]: Good morning, church My name is Cory, I'm one of the passage on staff.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know you're new.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're really glad that you're here.
[SPEAKER_00]: If this is your place, it's good to see You're smiling beautiful faces in your sweaters and your hoodies It's good to be here this morning
[SPEAKER_00]: My oldest son, when he was very young, really loved cars.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if you have a child like this in your family, like we would get in the truck to drive somewhere and he would immediately tell me what car was in front of us.
[SPEAKER_00]: He loved cars.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I had to stop at the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: When he was five years old, we were living in Richardson and we lived very near to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if you know this is over there or not.
[SPEAKER_00]: In Richardson there is a Lamborghini dealership.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I had this thought, I'm like, I wonder if I can take him up there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And by the way, you can just walk in to this place.
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't need an appointment.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I decided to take my five-year-old who loves cars.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I wanted him to see it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wanted him to experience the cars to be able to sit in them.
[SPEAKER_00]: They'll start it up for you, which is really cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wanted to be able to pick out his favorite one.
[SPEAKER_00]: But he kept doing something kind of funny.
[SPEAKER_00]: He kept wandering to the gift shop.
[SPEAKER_00]: Probably because he knew the budget before we got there.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm a pastor.
[SPEAKER_00]: He kept bringing me different cars, asking if we could get one, knowing that he could never have some of them, but he could have the toy.
[SPEAKER_00]: He settled for the toy, because the real thing was seemingly too far out of reach.
[SPEAKER_00]: He knew this at five, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think, I think at Christmas, we do something like this.
[SPEAKER_00]: We do that with God, especially in this season.
[SPEAKER_00]: We settle for things that feel more accessible.
[SPEAKER_00]: We settle for things that happen at this time of year that are good, that gives the parties, the time off, amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: All good things, but cheap in comparison to what's actually being offered to us in Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is why Advent matters.
[SPEAKER_00]: Advent jumps into the longest season in the liturgical calendar.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you ever look at it, called ordinary or normal time.
[SPEAKER_00]: An Advent jumps in as an interruption.
[SPEAKER_00]: Interrupts normal time, it invades our lives with a message that we need again and again and again.
[SPEAKER_00]: J.man talked about it last week.
[SPEAKER_00]: What Advent does is it lowers the volume on other stories.
[SPEAKER_00]: It turns them down so that we can hear the true story of the season.
[SPEAKER_00]: And our passage today's Matthew chapter one, it's really familiar.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of us are maybe prone towards tuning it out because we hear it at December every year.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or maybe we tune it out because we're not really convinced that it has anything new to say to us this year.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or maybe if you're like me and you've grown up in the church, Christmas can at times feel a bit predictable, or repetitive, or maybe even boring if we're honest.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the story just becomes background noise.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then what happens is we settle Christmas disappears.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then we come across this name for Jesus and Matthew chapter 1.
[SPEAKER_00]: Emmanuel, God with us, the name that invites us to believe that we don't have to settle any more.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't have to settle church.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's so much packed into these three words that we can't afford to miss or downplay their magnitude.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of our favorites here at the church, Sim Keller, calls the incarnation of Christ of the S.C. says, it's the universe-sundering, history, altering life, transforming paradigm, shattering, and all of human history.
[SPEAKER_00]: Emmanuel, God with us.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of my favorite books, knowing God, J.A.
[SPEAKER_00]: Packers says it like this.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, God became man.
[SPEAKER_00]: The divine Son became a Jew.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Almighty appeared on earth as a helpless human baby, unable to do more than lie and stare and wriggle and make noises, needing to be fed and changed and taught to talk like any other child.
[SPEAKER_00]: The babyhood of the Son of God was reality.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the more you think about it, the more staggering it gets.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing in all a fiction is so fantastic as the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: of the incarnation, God with us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Beloved, there's so much more happening and Matthew 1 than a seasonal retelling of Jesus' birth.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's way more happening.
[SPEAKER_00]: The truths of Christmas as Logan home our students, ministers, said this last week, they're not small, but instead they are foundational to our faith in Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: And whether we feel it or not, we need to be reminded because our hearts and our minds drift so easily in the season.
[SPEAKER_00]: My heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: my mind drifts so easily in this season.
[SPEAKER_00]: Christmas can just get swallowed up by all the trappings.
[SPEAKER_00]: The reality of God with us is not just central to right now at Advent.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is central to our lives as followers of Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's pray and we'll dive into the passage together.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're God.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that this is true.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is what's true.
[SPEAKER_00]: That God with us changes things.
[SPEAKER_00]: God would you grab a hold of our hearts again now, God?
[SPEAKER_00]: Our hearts and minds that drift so easily and center them in on the truth of God with us.
[SPEAKER_00]: The reality of this stir our affection for you again.
[SPEAKER_00]: May we be your minded.
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll speak to us now as we open your word together.
[SPEAKER_00]: Prayers in Jesus' name.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this advent we're focusing on the names of Jesus given in the birth narratives last week and next week we'll be again at Luke chapter two.
[SPEAKER_00]: Talking about these names of Jesus that revealed who he is and what he came to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: These powerful names of Savior and Christ and Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then in Matthew 1, today we encounter another name in Manuel, God with us that is really familiar.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me reread our passage together and then we'll kind of work our way through it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Matthew chapter one, starting in verse 18.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now in the birth of Jesus Christ, took place in this way.
[SPEAKER_00]: When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph before they came together and she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: And her husband, Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly.
[SPEAKER_00]: But as he considered these things behold an angel to Lord appear to him in a dream saying Joseph, Son of David, did not fear to take Mary's your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she will bear a son and she call his name Jesus for he will save his people from their sins.
[SPEAKER_00]: All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, this is quoting Isaiah, chapter seven.
[SPEAKER_00]: Behold, the Virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us.
[SPEAKER_00]: When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of Lord commanded him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He took his wife, but knew her not until she had given birth to a son and he called his name.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the birth of Jesus took place in a way that was both ordinary and extra ordinary.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mary, a common young woman engaged to a common carpenter and Joseph, but she was found to be pregnant before they were married.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this was a miraculous pregnancy conceived by the Holy Spirit, but Joseph didn't know that yet.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're kind of living it out in a lifetime.
[SPEAKER_00]: And understandably, this would put Joseph in a really complicated and difficult position.
[SPEAKER_00]: very complicated situation where he decided an honorable fashion he would initially decide to resolve things quietly so that Mary would not be publicly shamed.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's in this moment filled with tension and confusion and divine purpose that our passage draws us near.
[SPEAKER_00]: So as we walk through the passage there's three things that I want us to talk about this morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, first one is this, the story of God with us,
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a story that brings confidence in hope, the salvation of God with us, which Jesus did for us, and then the sending of God with us.
[SPEAKER_00]: What God wants to do through us, his people.
[SPEAKER_00]: Each of these truths flow from the reality captured in the name of manual.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the first one is this, the story of God with us.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think theologians agree with this, but if I was only given three words to summarize the narrative of the entire Bible,
[SPEAKER_00]: God with us is the message of God in Genesis.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's again the message of God in Revelation 21.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the consistent movement of God throughout the whole story.
[SPEAKER_00]: God coming to us to be with us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it doesn't change or vary.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we need that story daily.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when we consider the story of God with us, this is a theme that's running through scripture, through the meta-narrative.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's just a few of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: In Genesis, God walks with Adam and Eve.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Exodus, God's presence becomes Israel's identity and security.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the Psalm, God is near to the broken hearted and walks with those in the valley.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Isaiah, God would come to bear our grief and carry our sorrows.
[SPEAKER_00]: In John, the word becomes flesh and dwells amongst us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Acts, God comes to abide in and seal every follower of Jesus with the gift of the Holy Spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: that he might destroy the works of the devil.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in Revelation, what began in a garden ends in a city of unbroken nearness.
[SPEAKER_00]: And here's why this matters so much.
[SPEAKER_00]: This consistent story of God with us reminds us of how trustworthy our God is in a world of insecurity, God with us brings safety.
[SPEAKER_00]: It provides security and it's predictable in the best possible way because what it shows is it shows God's heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: It reveals his desire to be in relationship with you and with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Over and again, his heart does not vary.
[SPEAKER_00]: He does not shift.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is trustworthy.
[SPEAKER_00]: In a world that's constantly turning over with so many different narratives and stories to be a part of, God's heart for you and for me does not change.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was just recently sitting in the truck with my 15-year-old between soccer matches.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we were talking about this passage and we were talking about the story of God with us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as I explained this to him, I said, hey man, when you hear that God's story of longing to be with humanity has never changed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, how does that sit with you?
[SPEAKER_00]: What does it make you think of?
[SPEAKER_00]: And the first thing you said, he got real quiet and he goes, I don't know, but I know it makes me feel safe.
[SPEAKER_00]: It makes me feel safe.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, I know where I stand with God because the message hasn't ever changed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Got me thinking a bit of my life at home with my kids.
[SPEAKER_00]: Each of them are growing in a little bit of a higher EQ than I ever had as a child.
[SPEAKER_00]: Each one knows when I'm off, and they approach me in different ways.
[SPEAKER_00]: The 15-year-old just says, you good?
[SPEAKER_00]: The 10-year-old sweetly comes up and hugs me and asks me if I'm okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: The eight-year-old is a little bit more sheepish when I'm off steering clear when things aren't good.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what they need from me, in our home, what they expected me is to be the same guy all the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: But when I vacilate or when I'm a bit volatile, it robes security.
[SPEAKER_00]: Church, this is, this is not what we get from God.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have this steady God that we are safe and secure.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the same story that's been told from the beginning.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is clear, His nearness is provided.
[SPEAKER_00]: He gives us this.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the story of God with us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we've been invited into it, like we talked about last week.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is one key, King, one hero, one message, one God, one savior, one unchanging story of God with us that gives us confidence.
[SPEAKER_00]: He wants to be with us.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a story at Christmas.
[SPEAKER_00]: And one of the amazing parts of this story, it should stir our affection for God again and again and again and again and again.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Grant has confidence and hopes as God didn't simply come near and leave us the same.
[SPEAKER_00]: He came near to change our lives and make us something else.
[SPEAKER_00]: God with this means that Jesus came to save us from our past sins and from the brokenness that we are powerless against.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it leads us to our second point.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's this, the salvation of God with us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look at Matthew 1, 21 through 23.
[SPEAKER_00]: says, says, she will bear a son, and we will call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.
[SPEAKER_00]: All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, behold the virgin shall, conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name, Emmanuel.
[SPEAKER_00]: Historically, certainly for Joseph in this moment, God with us would have been a stunning if not terrifying reality.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Holy God drawing near to mankind was anything but a casual event.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you consider historically looking at the Old Testament, God appeared to Abraham as a billion furnace to Israel as a pillar of fire, to Job in a hurricane or tornado.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when Moses was asked to see God's face, he was told that it would destroy him.
[SPEAKER_00]: But here.
[SPEAKER_00]: God would come in a bite with humanity in the form of a helpless baby to become like us in every respect and yet remain without sin, so that he could truly stand in our place.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is then the shift, instead of fear or terror or dread or some perceived distance, we get God.
[SPEAKER_00]: with us and it means life for He will save His people from their sins, one author said like this.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, this means that through Christ, you can actually meet God.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can know Him personally and without terror, He can come into your life and change everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, do you realize what's going on here?
[SPEAKER_00]: Where's your joy?
[SPEAKER_00]: Where's your amazement?
[SPEAKER_00]: There should be the driving force of your entire life and it leads us to an amazement.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's an amazing thing that Jesus came to do for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it continues when you consider who it's for, this salvation, this God with us, rescue, is for every kind of person, regardless of their sin or their state of life.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when we read for He will save His people from their sins, consider who He's talking about.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look down at your Bible for a moment and look at the first 17 verses.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the genealogy of Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: Have you ever looked through that?
[SPEAKER_00]: I know we typically skim over genealogies.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're kind of hard to pronounce all the names.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't really know why they're there.
[SPEAKER_00]: But when you consider Matthew's genealogy, I think something happens and you slow down to consider the stories.
[SPEAKER_00]: And some of those names may be foreign to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of them may be really familiar.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you started digging, I think you might be surprised that some of the names are even in the list at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nonetheless, it's a list filled with sinners and simple.
[SPEAKER_00]: outsiders, misfits, idolaters, liars, murderers, the foolish, the prideful, the immoral, the religious, the righteous, the pagan, kings, commoners, culminating with Mary and Joseph in our story today, poor and misunderstood and facing the stigma of an unplanned, unwed pregnancy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus came for them all.
[SPEAKER_00]: God with us, saving us from our sin.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's for everyone on that list and everyone in this room.
[SPEAKER_00]: Spurgeon said it really beautifully.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, the first link between my soul and Christ is not my goodness, but my badness.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not my merit, but my misery, not my standing, but my failing, my falling.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not my riches, but my need.
[SPEAKER_00]: He comes to visit his people, yet not to admire their beauties, but to remove their deformities.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not to reward their virtues, but to forgive their sins.
[SPEAKER_00]: God has not come to dwell with us because we've been good, but because he is good.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in his goodness, he sent Jesus to ransom us from captivity to sin, and to make us ready to dwell with them both now and forever.
[SPEAKER_00]: The good news of Christmas and Advent is the reason why Jesus is the name above all names.
[SPEAKER_00]: It makes me want to start singing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not going to have done that in here before.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our Mavatma, do you know what these are?
[SPEAKER_00]: If you don't have a little one, you might not know it or Mavatma's are.
[SPEAKER_00]: Memory verse of the month.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our kids ministry team does an incredible job with this along with our worship team.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they record these.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can go to Spotify and you can listen to our Mavatma for the month.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's Matthew 121, song by our own John Mark.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's incredible.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's helping me memorize it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's helping my kids memorize it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you guys.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really beautiful, but the tag of it's really cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's one of my favorite songs we sing at Christmas.
[SPEAKER_00]: It says, come, that long, expected Jesus born to set thy people free from our sins and fears release us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let us find our rest and the church, would you join me and look in at that list?
[SPEAKER_00]: And remembering that your name is on that list too.
[SPEAKER_00]: Would you see what he has done to rescue you?
[SPEAKER_00]: Would Jesus came near to do for you that we could never do for ourselves and let us surprise you and captivate you and encourage you again.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let it remind you of what Jesus came to do for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: The story doesn't stop against salvation, it just continues.
[SPEAKER_00]: God with us doesn't only rescue it also calls.
[SPEAKER_00]: Salvation always leads to sending, at least to our third point, the sending of God with us.
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's go back to the last few verses in our reading for today.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look at Matthew 124 and 25.
[SPEAKER_00]: When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He took his wife, but knew her not until she had given birth to his son.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he called his name Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we don't know a whole lot about Joseph from the scripture.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you don't get a big picture of him.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what we do know is really beautiful.
[SPEAKER_00]: We know he's from the line of David.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know he's a carpenter.
[SPEAKER_00]: We know that he's a just and honorable man.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we know that he's obedient to the commandments of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you think about what this announcement would have meant for he and for Mary.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mary's pregnant, Joseph's not the father, and that culture typically would have meant divorce, but it would have meant a lot more to.
[SPEAKER_00]: It Joseph chose to marry here anyway.
[SPEAKER_00]: It would cost both of them in a shame and honor culture, who would have cost them both dearly.
[SPEAKER_00]: They'd be marked, excluded.
[SPEAKER_00]: rejected and any type of reputation they have will be gone.
[SPEAKER_00]: Imagine Joseph just trying to explain the reality of this story to some of the people around him.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yet he woke from the dream with purpose.
[SPEAKER_00]: He surrendered everything life had been about until that moment and made a lordship decision.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had an opportunity.
[SPEAKER_00]: and he chose to obey.
[SPEAKER_00]: He surrendered his massive cultural right.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the thing that we don't see quite as much as they did.
[SPEAKER_00]: This was a massive cultural moment for him to surrender.
[SPEAKER_00]: His right is the father to name his son.
[SPEAKER_00]: He courageously trusted God.
[SPEAKER_00]: He kept Mary's his wife.
[SPEAKER_00]: He raised Jesus' zone, son.
[SPEAKER_00]: His obedience points towards something crucial for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: God with us always leads to him sending us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just as Joseph trusted and obeyed God, we're called to do the same thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're called now to imitate his boldness.
[SPEAKER_00]: His courage and his obedience.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we get to move towards the world around us because God is with us helping us to do this same thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've been considering Matthew chapter 1, but if you ever look towards the end of Matthew 28, see that Matthew starts and finishes the exact same way.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: It comes right after the great commission where Jesus gives the disciples their marching orders to go, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then he says, how are they going to do this?
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, you can go do this because I am always with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: So then empowered by His presence, then now stayed with them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just as we now have His presence through the Holy Spirit with us,
[SPEAKER_00]: Calling us and sending us to be with the world the way that he was with us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Christmas affords us so many opportunities to do this, to live in this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I won this week, it was a bit odd.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it centered in around Christmas music.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was dropping my dog off to get groomed this last week.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when I walked in the first time, I saw mommy kissing Santa Claus was on.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then when I came back in later, it was heart-to-herald angels sing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I asked the guy that was working there, I go, hey, man, can you even hear the music that's playing in here anymore?
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you like his, it's quiet to you?
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, I love the one that's playing now.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we had a conversation about the lyrics of this song.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hark the Harold, Angels sing, Glory to the newborn King.
[SPEAKER_00]: Peace on earth, the mercy mild, God and sinner reconciled.
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, here I thought about those words.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's like, no, we got this conversation about Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: Friends, Christmas will afford us opportunities to sit with family and friends or maybe jump back into old friendships and relationships and many of them desperately needing the saving work of Jesus, our Savior, our Emmanuel.
[SPEAKER_00]: Beloved, this is what's offered to us from Jesus, God with us.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's readily available to us every day.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not distance.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not just for someone else.
[SPEAKER_00]: This story of God, the story of God with us, brings confidence and hope and security.
[SPEAKER_00]: The story hasn't changed.
[SPEAKER_00]: The salvation of God brings to the Father Jesus peace and freedom is nearness brings us life.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the sending of God with us, provides us with purpose and direction.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is a sending God.
[SPEAKER_00]: So let the truth of a manual stir your affection for God once again.
[SPEAKER_00]: Church at Christmas, we don't have to settle.
[SPEAKER_00]: God with us is calling us into this with him, the one true story.
[SPEAKER_00]: So here's what I wanna do as we close.
[SPEAKER_00]: We do this a few weeks ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just wanna take a few moments together to slow down.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we're going to sing together just a moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to take communion together.
[SPEAKER_00]: This can be beautiful and incredible.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I want us to take a moment to ask God to speak, as we consider these three things, the story of God with us, the salvation of God with us, the sending of God with us.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to ask God to speak to our hearts now before we move forward.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you would, you'd bow with me, I'm prayer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just take a moment and ask the Spirit of the Living God to speak to you in this moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: Remember it's the longing of God to be near His people.
[SPEAKER_00]: Would you ask him to speak to you in this moment?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is there another story that you've been living in?
[SPEAKER_00]: Would you ask God to remind you what the real story is?
[SPEAKER_00]: Would you take a moment to thank God that his messaging, his story of wanting to be in relationship with us has never changed?
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you thank him for that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Would you ask God to grant you confidence in his story?
[SPEAKER_00]: Not in self, but in his story that is unchanging.
[SPEAKER_00]: Shifting sand and stories.
[SPEAKER_00]: God, thank you for inviting us to your story.
[SPEAKER_00]: For those that know Jesus, would you take a moment to thank you for the salvation, at a manual, brought, a joy of knowing relationship with Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: for the ashamed, for the outsider, for the religious, for the commoner in the king.
[SPEAKER_00]: What would I pray for those in the stream that do not know that you long to be with them?
[SPEAKER_00]: What would you stir now and their tape down in their bones, God?
[SPEAKER_00]: Robert A.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sit, and a church in Plano's access, would you sweetly whisper to them that you long to be with them, and to rescue them from their son?
[SPEAKER_00]: For Jesus came to save sinners.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lastly, Holy Spirit, would you make us a people with presence?
[SPEAKER_00]: Would you send us to go tell it on the mountain?
[SPEAKER_00]: Got to move our feet and our hands towards people around us that needs to know this story.
[SPEAKER_00]: Got to overwhelm our hearts, captivate our hearts again with just how good this news is.
[SPEAKER_00]: So send us, send us with open eyes and courageous obedience.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the lives of people around us who need the hope of Emmanuel.
[SPEAKER_00]: God, we love you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am so glad that we did not have to settle for some other story.
[SPEAKER_00]: Pretty things in Jesus' name.