Today, Beth is starting a new message series, "Address the Mess." We’ll look at the messy situations faced by the characters of the Christmas story and how God came through for them.
Today, Beth is starting a new message series, "Address the Mess." We’ll look at the messy situations faced by the characters of the Christmas story and how God came through for them.
Good morning vineyard family. This is the service that talks back to me. I like that already. Good morning. Good morning. Now, my name is Beth Guckenberger. And I'm part of the teaching team here at the vineyard. And I just before we jump into the series, I just want to echo what Jennifer was just saying. Certainly, in the work I do with back to back ministries in Nigeria, I've seen firsthand the impact that this church has had on the other side of the world. And this is a church that's generous. And when I think about legacy of hope, I was thinking exactly what she was just saying, It's a legacy of hope. And it's a legacy of faith. And as Tyler and Caleb were testifying, growing up in this church, witnessing it participating in an age appropriate ways. And now as adults stewarding what has been given to them, that is the prayer that this will be a community known for their faith steps, and their generosity. So thank you for participating in all the year and giving. Last week, Matt finished up the series, we were in on the book of Ephesians. And today, I'm going to kick off a series that will take us through Christmas, that's called a dress the mess. And December is Christmas time is the most wonderful time of the year, we got songs tell us about it, and movies that are talking about it. It's a wonderful time of year, but it's also a season that is full of expectations. I've told you before in my household, we call expectations, premeditated resentments. And so just saying, so we're going to do a little exercise to get started this morning. And it's going to be an exercise in vulnerability. And because, you know, here's my heart, and I don't want church to ever be the one hour of the week when you put your best foot forward, like this is God's house, this is his living room, if there's any place, we should be able to let our hair down, it should be here. This is this is we come to church, to have authentic exchanges with the Holy Spirit and each other. And so we're going to start this series what with just acknowledging some of the challenges that come in a month like this one. And we'll be studying throughout the whole month, various biblical characters and the ways in which God came for them and give hope to them. And because he's the same yesterday, today, and forever, if we found the hope he gave them, it's true for us still today. So here's what I want you to do, I'd like you to take your cell phone outs. And in this exercise, you're going to turn your flashlight on. And when you have your flashlight on, you can put it against your legs so that we can't see it yet. And they're going to turn all the house lights off. So we'll be in the dark. And then I'm going to read to you a series of statements. And if this statement resonates with how you're feeling, you're going to raise your flashlight, it'll be your way of voting. And there are three things that are going to happen when you do that. The first thing that's going to happen is it's just good for us to admit to ourselves, how we're feeling. Sometimes it's, it feels easier, maybe if we don't just actually kind of go there with our heart and mind. But like I was just saying, if we can't go there here at church, where can we go there? Like, let's just admit if there's something that's hard this month, so vote, it'll be good for us to be self aware and go there. The second thing that will happen is you're signaling to God, hey, I might need some comfort. I need encouragement. I need you to provide I need your I need I need. I need you. When you vote you're raising your hand. Oh God, do you see me here? The answer is yes. And the third reason is, I don't I don't want a single person to come into this house and think everybody else has it all figured out. But me, everyone else has got this all this. Christmas must be amazing for everybody else. For me. It's hard. It's hard because of whatever is going on in your life. When you acknowledge where you might be hurting or feeling or missing this month, and you do it publicly in front of your spiritual siblings here you are helping someone else not feel alone. Because we don't really I mean right on social media we just we look off like shiny happy people. We don't we we wear our Christmas sweaters and it makes it seem like I mean everything is great. And I don't know if we can have a whole series about addressing the messages if we don't acknowledge we got messages to address. So get your flashlights on put them on your leg so we can't see the lights y'all turn the house lights off and let's let's have some moments of vulnerability with each other with ourselves and in front of the Lord. This is my favorite time of the year. Okay, some of you. That's true. I'm glad it's gotten colder. And I hope it snows soon. Okay. Wow. Okay, good. Okay, okay. I've done most of my shopping already. And I'm feeling ready for December. Wow, wow, wow. Impressive. This time of year reminds me of what I want, but don't have and it makes me feel lonelier than usual. Thank you. Thanks for coming. And thanks for being honest. During the winter, I find myself wrestling with feelings of depression and anxiety. Thanks for being honest, I have additional stress at work or school this month. That's a spotlight. Christmas seems more expensive to me this year. I'll be hosting people at my home over the holidays. And it feels like there's a lot to do. My family has experienced loss since last Christmas. And it feels like there will be a big empty hole this year. I want you to feel seen, those of you who just raised your flashlights, I want you to feel seen. We have new people in our family since last year, and I'm unsure how it'll go being together. I may lay hands and pray over you all. I'm feeling kind of distant from God right now. So it's hard to really get into the season. Thank you. Thank you for being honest. I have additional social events, and the extra already seems exhausting. Thank you for making this room be a safe place. I want you to know you're welcome here. If you raise your flashlight, every time or none of the times, or if you're one of those people that doesn't do what the people on stage tell you to do. Like when they say close your eyes and you're like I'm not closing my eyes. Or put your hands out. You're not putting your hands out like you didn't get your flashlight out. It's okay. It's actually okay. I see you. I just want us if we aren't that attractive to a world that doesn't know Jesus when we pretend. I mean, we aren't and I don't know if I almost I don't know if I know another church is as longing to be authentic as this one. And I want if you're here for the first time, or you're just tuning in. This is the place where we are going to talk about not how perfect our lives are, but the hope that we have in Jesus. That's that's I wasn't trying to discourage you. Maybe some of those things you haven't admitted to yourself and now you're like, Okay, now I don't really feel that great. But I want us just to be honest, about where we need, where we need help. Jennifer talked a minute ago about Jesus is the Prince of Peace this season. We sing songs about him being the Prince of Peace. Maybe you have a sign in your house about him being the Prince of Peace. That word peace comes from the Hebrew word shalom. And Shalom has this very long, sophisticated theological definition. But the part of it that I like the best, is it, it means it fills in your cracks. Shalom brings wholeness to something. And when we raised our flashlights a minute ago, we admitted we have some cracks and the prince of peace that we're talking and singing and thinking about this season is someone who doesn't want us to pretend if we have it all together. He just wants to come and fill in our cracks. He wants to come and be more than enough for us. He's not afraid of what your cracks are. He's not judging. Are we doing this again this Christmas? He's not. He's not worried. He is present. He's a God that is with us. Well, over the course of this month, we as the pastor's all divided different biblical characters and we're each taking a different one and I got assigned Elizabeth which I'm trying not to overthink, it feels a little apropos because she's like a middle aged woman bordering on senior citizenship. And, and like clay is gonna have the Coolcat of Joseph next week. You know, like, I'm just trying to imagine they didn't typecast me but I'm going to tell you a little bit about this biblical character named Elizabeth she her story is found in Luke chapter one. She was married to a man named Zachariah who was a priest. And in those days, priests had duties one month of the year, the the division of priest that Zachariah was in had the priestly duty in the month of June. And during his priestly duty, he got visited by an angel and that angel tells him that his wife, who some of our translations say she was old, some of them say she was past childbearing ages, most theologians think she was somewhere 50-60 years of age, I've read up to 80, that feels kind of overwhelming to me, but just imagine a much, much older woman, I was gonna ask you to raise your hand if you're past the childbearing age, but I won't do that. Just imagine, just imagine, okay, imagine a woman of that age who had never given birth before. She was barren until that point. And the angel says to to Zachariah, Elizabeth's going to have a baby. And he's going to bring hope to the nation of Israel. And you're going to name him, John. And at first Zachariah was like, Are you? Are you sure like she, she can't have babies and she is old. And because he doubted in the beginning, the angel made him mute, he wouldn't talk again for the rest of that pregnancy. So I mean, the moral of that little story is believed Jesus when he tells you something, but it says that the first five months of her pregnancy, Elizabeth remains in seclusion. And we don't really know why. It could be a variety of reasons. Maybe she just didn't feel that good. I mean, I can't imagine being old and pregnant, you probably just didn't want to really leave the bed. I mean, it could be that she was afraid she was gonna miscarriage and she just wanted to protect this miracle that had happened in her. Maybe she was afraid of herridge. She'd already heard that he was killing babies. And she just wanted to have that protective instinct over John that was growing inside of her. Maybe she didn't want to get their questions to people around her. Like, how come your husband can't talk anymore? Like what you? We don't know why she stayed in seclusion for the first part of her pregnancy. But I can just just say right off the bat, it's a messy story. Like we are not messy situations are not exclusive to 2023. Wherever there's been people, there's been a mess. She's gonna get visited by her by Mary, who's her cousin Mary, who's carrying the baby Jesus and who was also miraculously impregnated because it was an immaculate conception. And in Luke chapter one, verse 39, it says, At that time, Mary got ready. She just found out she was pregnant with Jesus freshly conceived, and she hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea. First of all, I just want to say Mary's young, like, they think 1213, maybe 14 years old. At best. She's a young girl, and she traveled to a whole nother place by herself, like, where her parents are, where's Joseph, and Israelites are practically enslaved at this point, their cities are getting burned down to the ground. And donkeys were like Mercedes, so she would have literally walked there. Like, what what made Elizabeth's house so important to marry, that as soon as she finds out, she's going to have the Savior of the world. She runs to another town to be with this older woman, a cousin she knows named Elizabeth, where she entered. The verse goes on to say she enters Zacharias home, Mary does and she greets Elizabeth. And I just I think, for a long time when I read that story, and I knew that Elizabeth and Mary are cousins, I made them kind of like peers. We're not beggars. You have a six year old woman and a 13 year old girl, like they greeting each other. Imagine Alyssa has been in seclusion. She hasn't talked to anyone. She can't even talk to her husband. He can't talk back like she is she isn't seclusion. She sees her cousin, like what do we think she said, like, you cannot even believe this. We got visited by an angel and I am having a baby. And Mary would have been like, me too. Like I got visited by an angel and I am having a baby. I think Elizabeth is worth taking a look at because she would have been disappointed from a lifetime of wanting a baby and not having one. And she remained faithful. She grew up in the priestly lineage of Aaron, just like her husband, Zachariah did that mean she would have been raised in a home with all the right prayers and all the right songs and all the right customs, she would have been raised in the faith, then they enter professionally into the faith they're married, they would have been forced a couple of times to make a decision between doing things God's way, as they were raised to understand it, or they would have had the opportunity to get involved in the corruption that was littering the priestly system in those days. Right. God had written the law that they had to sacrifice lambs because he was setting it all up. For when he was going to be the lamb of the world, and some of the priests in those days were the were deciding that they were the only ones that could raise the lambs and decide which lambs were good and decide how much those lambs cost. And they had like a little mob going on. It's why Jesus later will turn over the tables. That's not how he designed it to be. But Elizabeth and Zachariah, disappointed in God for not giving them a baby their whole entire life could have fallen and been seduced into that kind of power and riches, and yet they remained faithful. And I think there's something about the profile of Elizabeth, we need to get straight. This was a faithful woman, despite the circumstances of her life, not being what she wanted them to be. When Elizabeth is faithful woman heard Mary's greeting there at the door, the baby leaped, John the Baptist slept in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. I mean, let's just stop there for a second. This is Luke chapter one, we will formally meet the Holy Spirit as He comes into all people in Acts chapter two, that's not for a little bit here yet. And at this point, we've seen the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament, he'd come on to Gideon, Elijah, he come into David, he's come into the some of the prophets, a couple of the judges. But now all of a sudden, this woman, this faithful woman, is filled with the Holy Spirit's. And in a loud voice, full of that spirit, she says, Blessed are you among women, young women, and blesses the Child you will bear Why am I so favor that the mother of my Lord, the Holy Spirit, and her recognize the Son of God that was in our belly, should come to me as soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby and my, and my womb leaped for joy. And I just want to if we're for building the profile of Elizabeth, she's a faithful woman. She's an old woman, she was a barren woman, she would have experienced disgrace that people they didn't know things about their bodies the way we do now today about infertility and why sometimes they don't work the way we want them to. So they would have made excuses for her Baroness like saying things behind her back, like you know how she's a sinful woman. So God is not going to bless her. Or maybe they thought Zachariah was a sinful man, but he was the priest. So probably they thought it was her right. Or, or they thought maybe there was something wrong with their marriage, but whatever it is, she would have been very familiar with having been disgraced and talked about behind her back. She's really going to be a perfect person to spend some time with Mary, who's about to have nine whole months of that. She's going to have people talking about her behind her back. After Elizabeth confirms the womb leaping of John the Baptist, Mary starts singing something called Mary song and Matt is going to talk to us later this month. More about Mary song, but I just want to say something really quickly about it. What's crazy to me is Mary song in your scriptures is littered with references to the Old Testament. She quotes Psalms Jobe, Isaiah, Micah, Genesis First Samuel. I mean, we should be asking ourselves, how's a 12 year old girl know her Bible so well, she's never been in school. Girls don't go to school that just boys go to school at age six. The only way a young girl would have known her Bible that well is if her father had taught her the Hebrew Scriptures. So now I'm likely you know, as Mary has a dad. I never thought about him before. That means Jesus has a grandpa. And he's a goat. He's a cool grandpa, because he decided his daughter was worth the effort to teach her the scriptures before he even knew she was one day going to be the mother and the Savior of the world. He just saw value in her. And all grandparents think their kids are perfect. I just like to imagine him talking to his wife. Like, I mean, literally, I don't think I've ever seen Jesus do anything wrong. I think our grandson is perfect, right? I mean, like how network Elizabeth cares for Mary, any tips, she takes care of her for three months. So again, the best way to read Scripture is let it paint a picture in your mind. So 1312 year old Mary finds out she's having a baby runs to her senior citizen cousin stays in our house for the whole first trimester. Why? Why? What's Joseph, think about that? What's his grandfather of Jesus, think about that? What we can, what we can immediately deduce is that Elizabeth was an emotionally safe person. And she became emotionally safe, a safe destination for Mary, in what was arguably the most crazy time of her whole young life. And she became that person way before she was ever going to be married the mother of Jesus. So somehow, when Mary was six, and eight and four and 10, Elizabeth was attentive, responsive, kind, demonstrated faithful, I mean, she made an impression on Mary when Mary was a child. And I think it's something for us to think about. We need to listen to our little people when they tell us about their little problems, because they were never little to them. That way, when they're bigger and they got bigger problems, they know that you're an emotionally safe person and they can come to you. This is what this is what's happening. God brought these two women together so that they can encourage each other and they could worship and they could love you And before there for each other who knows what they talked about? Maybe they were like, how's your backfield today this out my back felt today? Or like, maybe they maybe they talked like, do you think our babies are the fulfillment of the prophecies we've been reading about our whole life? Or maybe maybe they talked about their fears of Herod, like their conversations would have been endless, and substantial and substantive. And what we're calling messes the season really hard things happening. Messes are addressed best in conversations that are long and substantive. And sometimes we can think yourself, I just hope I get through Christmas and we don't go there. Like I hope, I hope that never comes up. I hope we can just blink our eyes and we're in January, and that never fell apart or erupted or got talked about. I think there's something about conversations that we can have the opportunity to have this month that that bring healing and encouragement to each other. Eventually, Mary's going to leave Elizabeth's house, the Bible doesn't tell us if it's before or after the birth of John the Baptist. But anyway, she Mary finally leaves after three months, and Elizabeth gives birth to a son. And it would have been the Jewish custom that after John the Baptist was born, eight days later, he would be circumcised and named. And at this point, Zacharias still can't talk. So there's Elizabeth in a room full of a bunch of priest ton of men. There's her husband can't talk as her baby boy, that would have circumcised her and then circumcised and then they would have looked at her and said, Okay, what's his name? But everybody knew what his name is, like, his name's gonna be Zachariah uses a way you wait 60 years to have a baby. And then you don't name it after the man like that's, that's just what you do. And she looks around that room and she goes, his name is John. And everybody looks over at Zachariah, like, you're gonna let this lady name your baby, John, like, his name is gotta be Zachariah. And Zachariah opens his mouth. And he affirms and says his name will be drawn. And finally, now he can talk a job. But I know that three months in the presence of a faithful woman who has walked the walk was a gift to Mary. It strengthened her in the first trimester for the two trimesters that were yet to come. But I also think about Elizabeth spent three months in the presence of her unborn Savior. I think that Coolcat got herself some hutzpah. Like she got some, she got some faith, she was not going to be intimidated by anybody. She had spent time with Jesus, and she's filled with the Holy Spirit. And that's exactly what can happen to us. We can spend time with Jesus and we can be filled with the Holy Spirit, and nobody can intimidate us. We can speak the truth of the things that God has told us and a room it doesn't matter who's looking at us. We can speak the truth and love. And let's thrive and let's just do some math here like when actually was John the Baptist born. So his dad Zachariah, priestly duty one month of the year that the division of Abijah, which we read in Luke Chapter One was his division, their priestly duty was in June, shortly after they get pregnant. Let's get them pregnant in July, six months later, when that baby leaped in this womb, John the Baptist and she meets freshly conceived Jesus would have been December, that right now, during Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights, the light of the world was conceived now during the festival of lights, don't let that mess up your Christmas. But that's that's how that happened. Then, three months later, John the Baptist would have had a march birthday when Elizabeth would have given birth and he was called John. And of course, John the Baptist is a fabulous biblical character which we can read, who went out and had the hutzpah of his mother and his father prepared the way for the coming of the Savior. Then, if, if the, if the light of the world was conceived in December, he would have been born if Mary had a typical pregnancy, which we have no reason to think she didn't, in in the early fall, during harvest season during what's called Sukkot or the Feast of Tabernacles. In fact, John will say Jesus came in he tabernacled among us. It's the one time with the shepherds allowed out in the fields. Normally, you don't want shepherds out in the field or animals, they're gonna eat the crops. But at harvest season at surcoat, after they finished that harvest, they invited the shepherds to come out in the fields with their animals so they could eat the little things that were leftover that didn't get didn't get harvested, and then they could leave like a little deposit fertilizing the ground for the growing season to come. And I want you to picture those shepherds. They were out in those fields when the angels came and announced that Jesus had been born. And those shepherds I don't know what your nativity sets look like in your house right now. But it I had to throw away one that I had, that was like a really nice pine building, and it had like a plaid blanket for Jesus and it had some like hay in it. That's not where shepherds would have kept their animals out there in the field. Animals would have been kept in in caves that makes all the sense of the world. Shepherds are smart, they're going to use the three different walls that are provided by nature and a cave. And they would put their animals in there at night and they would light a fire in the entrance to keep the animals in at night and they would curl themselves around that fire and sleep through the evening. And here comes Mary and there's no place for her to stay. And where she going to sleep. She's going to sleep with animals Where are the animals sleeping? I want you to mentally imagine what that cave looks like. The floor would have been full of dung. Nobody's mucking out the caves like, like animal after animal night after night, season after season, all on top of each other, the floor would have been nasty. And I don't know if you've ever cleaned out your grill or your fireplace and gotten that black sit on your fingers. But the walls would have been lined with a set of 1000 shepherds fires. I honestly think Jesus came in was chosen to be born in the most nastiest, darkest place you can possibly imagine, because he was sending a message to them then. And a message to us today, there is no place to dark, I will not come. A couple of Christmases ago, it was Christmas Eve Eve. And a few months prior to that I had a cousin who was suffering from breast cancer and who had called me because she had done the genetic testing and found out that the bracha gene, the gene mutation for breast cancer ran in our family and my lost my father a couple of decades before then to to Abraca to cancer and we had had other family members and she just said I think you should consider getting tested. So I told my doctor and that October I got tested and then I just forgot about it. And December 23 what we call my house EVs if I haven't met yet, I have literally like a dozen children and Christmas Eve Eve it is like it is like zoo in my house. Like I'm making my list. I'm checking it twice. I'm getting food together. What made that day even crazier as I was going to be speaking at a church that evening, and I got a phone call that morning from my doctor's office. And they asked if I would be willing to come in that day, they wanted to read me some results that had come in from a test. I said, No, I'm not willing to come in today. Can you tell me over the phone or can it wait? And they said no, it actually can't wait and we're closed most of next week. We the office manager got on the phone said I don't want to take a few minutes. I think you need to come in in person. So I told my husband, okay, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to get dressed for church, I'm going to go to the doctor's office, then I'm going to go to church, you can get all the rest of these people to church. I'll meet you guys there. I most of my adult life, I drove cars the size of small houses like Suburbans because I had all those kids. As soon as the last one got his license. My husband bought me this tiny, tiny, tiny little sports car that had only two seats, not even a trunk it was called a spider. It looks like a matchbox car. And it was a stick shift. So I got in my little tiny car. And I drove to the doctor's office. And on my way there some guy calls me sometimes tonight can function like a intermediary between somebody who wants to bless someone at Christmas time and someone who has a need. And this guy calls me he wanted to give a gift to the single mom and her kids. And he said would you mind? I'm at Sam's, could you run by and pick it up? And then you could give it to them tonight at church and they don't have to know it's for me. And I was like, Okay, I think I can do that. So I just thought he was giving me a gift certificate. I get up there. He was outside ready to meet me and he had bought a trampoline. So So I probably in hindsight, should have said drive that thing to the church drop it off on me. I was Christmas Eve. I was like, okay, okay, Santa sleigh will make it work. I put the top down in my car. And I put the trampoline in the passenger seat that there is no trunk, there is no backseat, that's the only place to stick it. It was 400 pounds. And it's a stick shift. So I'm like, It's okay, it's okay. It'll be fine. This is like, you know, whatever. So I drive to the doctor's office, every time I turned it would like kind of come on me but and then I get to the doctor's office and they deliver me the news that I was positive for the Abraca to Gene they handed me the name of an oncologist and told me that I needed to immediately embark on a series of procedures, including a double hysterectomy and the double mastectomy and a hysterectomy. And it was like, I was trying to metabolize all that news. But it's Christmas Eve Eve. I had a lot of other things on my mind. I took in what they told me and I go out to the car to drive to church and it starts to rain. And I I had on a velvet dress velvet and rain isn't it was not a good look. Right? So I'm like driving to church shifting. I can't call my husband, I put my hands on the trampoline. I can't tell. And I'm like how do I make this Oh, I get to church. There was no time I was like running late because of all this extra errands. There was no time to process, no time to do nothing. I get on stage and I tell them exactly what I just told you about the shepherds in the field. And Jesus choosing to go past the palace of Herod where kings thought they were being born. And the real King of Kings was born inside of a cave as dark as you could see it. And I felt like Jesus was looking at me. And he's like, do you hear yourself? You know what, there is no story too dark, I won't go with you into this is the prince of peace that wants to give us the kind of hope that fills in our cracks. He was with me that whole next year and I'm happy to say I have no continuing issues. I'm just grateful for what God did. I don't know. You know we live in a world where it's really easy to get stuck in a day. And if you don't like the way That day is going or the circumstances around that day you can think where in the world is God. But God is not stuck in any day that we're living. He looks at our whole life at one time. And the message he is sending to us this morning is the story is not over yet. I have a plan for you. It's the same promise he gave to the people of Israel when they were stuck in captivity. Imagine being in captivity. And the prophet Jeremiah said these words to him, I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not harm you, to give you a future and a hope. We've talked about that word hope before in Hebrew, it's teak. Literally, it means rope. It's something you hold on to. Right. God wants us to hold on. And the first step and addressing the mess is realizing, God I'm holding on to you because I trust you already on the job. And you have a chapter coming that I don't know what it is, but I'm trusting you in it. And I don't know what messes you might have going on this. This Christmas, I have a protocol that is breaking my heart. And if you have a protocol, you know exactly what I mean. Like, I don't know, if you have a diagnosis, or you have a marriage that's fragile, or you you have trouble at work. I don't know what your thing is. But here's what I know for sure. He's throwing you a rope. And he's telling you hold on to me. The story's not over. I'll go anywhere we need to, there's no place to dark and nasty, I won't go. And it can seem like this Christmas is like perfect snow falls and perfect dinners and perfect movies and perfect gifts. But it's ultimately it was It has always been since its origin. Christmas has been a story of tension and messiness. It was so complicated for Mary culturally disastrous for her to be pregnant. She gets to a town and we say kind of cute, like there's no room. In the end. It was not a sign of overcrowding. It was a sign of rejection, that like she was being rejected for Joseph and clay will talk to us more about him next week. He knows messy. He's from the line of David. That's the kind of stuff with Bathsheba in his in the city of David, where he should have had relatives. Nobody wanted them to stay with him either. This was a family that was experiencing rejection, if you have that going on in your Christmas story. Jesus is he's familiar with that storyline. For the Jewish community, they had a terrible king. But they knew their Bibles. They knew that hope was supposed to be common. They were holding on to it, but they had hundreds of years of silence. They're like, is it this time? I don't know. And for us, there can be all kinds of complicated things going on in our calendars and in our families and in our wallets and in our expectations. But the promise that God made through Jeremiah is true for us today. He has plans for us. And we can trust they are good. They are for our good and for His glory. And as we hold on to that rope, and it comes in us now it can flow out of us and we got to testify to a world has no idea what real hope actually is, and how can they know what hope is if we don't tell them about the way that God has come in and filled in our cracks, the kind of vulnerability that we were experiencing and practicing here this morning in this safe house, we need to take out there to a world that doesn't know what to do with it. And so my holiday self talk is sounding like this these days. I've told you before Isaiah 51. One remember the rock from which you are cut and the quarry from which you are Yun, Elizabeth and Mary are our spiritual siblings. And so the spirit that filled them, he fills us right and in this family and the spiritual family we have hope. We stick around we encourage we fight against darkness, we we give our full attention and are emotionally safe to other people. We stand in truth. We speak in love. We bless people, we forgive people, we listen well. And we testify in every single chance that we can. This is a month, full of opportunities for us not just to address the mess, but actually embrace the mess. And tell the whole wide world no matter how dark it feels. The light of the world is coming. Would you pray with me? Oh, Jesus, I'm so grateful that you have thrown us a rope. Because there is mess in our life. There are relationships that are complicated. There are fears that are real that we have there is the unknown of the future. There is our own frailty, our own limitations, our sinful natures that the temptations of the world there are so many reasons and ways in which things are getting all tangled up. You lie to the world we've never needed you more calm, calm Spirit of God into this place. Calm that we would worship you as we worship we are practically holding on to hope will seem with our whole heart and our whole mind and our whole mouth will sing out to you call to you to come. Come Spirit fill us. Come fill in our cracks, calm, be the God of hope. We want to know you we want to experience you and then we want to testify about you. So Jesus said With the authority that I have as a spiritual sibling, among this family as a co heir with you, I asked you to release an anointing on this room and on this time of worship that we made, we re experiencing you to full measure that we may leave here changed. We love you, Jesus, and we trust all these things in your resurrected name. Amen.