The Guiding Star - Matthew 2:1-6 - 25 Days of Christmas

All right. Well, hey, guys, welcome across all of our locations this weekend, man. We're excited to be diving into Matthew Chapter 2 today.

So we're going to be right in the 25 days of Christmas. We're going to talk about that. But I do just want to try to kind of layer on what our campus pastors and service hosts have just mentioned. Guys, one of our greatest opportunities of the whole year to invite someone to church is coming up in two weeks from now.

All right. In my world, okay, in the world of churches and growing and church and all that kind of stuff, this is funny to say, but all the gurus are saying Christmas is the new Easter. Now, that's hard to figure, okay, in your mind. But what they're saying is that people are even more receptive now to wanting to think about church and spiritual things around the Christmas season. And we have seen that to be true, haven't we?

We have seen that to be true at Mercy Hill. All right. And so here's the deal.

Let me give you another little tidbit from my world, okay? If we want to pull this off well, whatever we think attendance is going to be we're praying for, you need about 20% of that attendance to be strong. That's terrible that we have to say only 20%.

It should be 100%, all right? But we need at least 20%. Here's what I'm going to call you to do. And I'm really going to call everyone in here to think about how can you jump on a serve team for the Christmas services. 20 services across six different locations is a big deal to try to pull off, all right? And we need over 1,000 volunteers to make sure that this is pulled off not only well, but with excellence. Think about this. If you have somebody you really love and they decide to give it one shot around a Christmas season to come and you know they're going to hear the gospel, wouldn't you want us to be at our best?

Well, we're going to be at our best if we jump off the sideline and onto the front line. You guys know what I'm going to say. Jesus didn't die to create spectators.

He died to create servants, workers, not watchers, okay? And I'm a parent. I know not everybody is, all right? But here's what I know in our culture. We say things like this to our kids. We say Christmas is not about receiving. It's about giving. It's about serving. Well, if it's about giving and serving, what message are we actually saying to them if we come and receive at the Christmas services without giving our time to make sure other people can receive, right? We don't want to tell them it's all about giving when what we're really telling them is, man, it's really about receiving. So don't teach your kids to receive without giving.

Make sure that you sign up as a family. You guys can sign up mercyhillchurch.com slash Christmas. Also, we're going to be in Matthew 2 today. And this weekend, Sunday, all right, is going to be the Matthew 2 scripture for our 25 days of Christmas, okay? And so what's happening over 25 days of Christmas is every single day, the day that we're having, whatever that Sunday is, that's the sermon that we're going to preach on, okay? And so if you are brand new and you're like, well, that sounds pretty cool, then we want you to jump into our 25-day devotional. And what you'll do is you'll just kind of catch right with us, the entire church, all right?

Jumping in, we're asking for $100. If this is your first time, you're new to this, no problem. Text JOY to 87217. That is a message that you can cancel anytime. But I promise you, after the 25 days of Christmas, they're not going to keep sending you the next 25 days of Christmas or whatever, all right? It's just a, you know, a defined thing.

So jump into that, and I hope that you'll jump in with us as we're doing that. But 25 days of Christmas, okay, today, Matthew chapter 2, we are going to talk about a story that's been depicted in so many of our homes right now. It is the story of the wise men, the magi, however you want to say it. We Three Kings, okay? Many of us know the song We Three Kings. The Christmas season is a really strange time because you got a lot of holly jolly stuff, and then you have a lot of Jesus stuff.

And sometimes they're, you don't know, you know, they're all kind of getting mixed up together on the radio station and all that. Not every Christmas song is about Jesus. Bing Crosby's White Snow is not about your sin being turned white as snow, okay? Run Run Rudolph is not about running away from the devil, all right? These are holly jolly songs. There's other songs, though, and We Three Kings is one of those, that really teaches us different things about theology and not getting into is the song right or not. Here's what I want you to know about the song. The song says, and this is the point, king forever ceasing never.

That's the point. King forever ceasing never. And here's my question for you today. Man, if Jesus Christ really is king forever, ceasing never, and I know not everybody believes that today, all right? I pray that you would. I pray that you would come to that understanding. But if he is the king, if there is a God in the universe who has created this world for himself and his glory, and every one of us are playing into that, every one of us are woven into that tapestry, if there is a king forever ceasing never, then doesn't it make sense then that everything in the world that he would be moving in all the breaks of the game to bring about his super plan, his purposes?

And that's what we see today, man. This is a big God sermon. This sermon is about expanding the way that we think about God because here's the deal.

We serve a God that is so big and so bad that for him to get his message out to flick some stars around in the sky ain't nothing. It's nothing for him. Man, he created this whole world. He holds it right in his hand.

He can do whatever he wants. That's how big, it's how enormous, it's how intense, it's how grand he is. I mean the point of today is just to bask in this idea that God literally moved heaven around to draw people from earth. To draw people from earth. Here's what I want you to see today. God exerts his global influence.

Why? Why is there something rather than nothing? Why are we here? What is the mission?

What is the purpose of humanity? What is he doing? God exerts his global influence. He wields his power.

Here's what he's doing. He's bringing the nations to himself. He is bringing a people from all the peoples of the world to himself to worship him because that's what he deserves. We are created for God. He is not created for us. He is at the center and we revolve around him.

It's not the other way around. We are contingent creatures. We are small and God is great and enormous and huge and powerful and wonderful and he moves stuff around.

Why? So that he will reap max glory and the great thing is about being a created being which we all are. When you find the purpose of your creation of why you're here if that purpose actually is to glorify God then us knowing that helps us tap into the ultimate source of joy and happiness because now we realize oh this is why I'm here to explore to be satisfied and to enjoy our God forever. Look at Matthew 2. Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king behold wise men from the east came to Jerusalem saying where is he who has been born king of the Jews for we saw his star when it rose we saw his star when it rose moving heaven around and have come to worship him when Herod the king heard this he was troubled and all Jerusalem was with him and assembling all the chief priests and the scribes of the people he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born and he told them and they told him and they told him in Bethlehem of Judea for so it is written by the prophet and you owe Bethlehem in the land of Judah are by no means least among the rulers of Judah for from you shall come a rule who will come come a rule who will shepherd my people Israel. Now for purposes of today I'm gonna stop and I'm gonna just kind of you probably know some of the rest of the story okay the wise men they go uh they end up finding Jesus because of this prophecy he's in Bethlehem they go to Bethlehem uh they have gold frankincense and myrrh okay it's like the old little kid Christmas pageant they go to bring their their gifts to Jesus and one kid says I have gold the other kid says I have myrrh and the other kid says some guy named Frank sent this okay so you know that's but but they give the they give the stuff to Jesus and I mean you guys I mean we live in the south most of you probably know some of the story whether you've been in church much or not but but that's not the whole point I'm trying to get into today okay the point that I want to get into is actually relatively small part of this story although it changes everything in our life if it is true that God is a God who is so powerful that he not only sent the star in the sky but probably through the exile of his people 500 years later had implanted the word where these wise men were even looking for the star my point is this the tapestry is so complex and yet God stands over it all now who are these guys the magi well people talk about magi wise men the kings there's a lot about this story that we're not sure if we even get right probably the little thing I got at my house with the little guys that are the three wise men or whatever it's probably not exactly accurate but who are they they're divine they're diviners they're astrologers they're magicians they're people who study the ancient literature they have been intrigued though by some prophecy that they know about the star about the king that will come and these guys have now come to check it out I would imagine they probably look like they walked right off the set of a harry potter movie okay and uh and they've just traveled 800 miles one of the reasons why people say there's probably not three of them is because you don't travel 800 miles in the ancient worlds with three dudes all right this probably is a little more like will smith in aladdin you know the genie coming in with the whole procession than it is you know the three guys coming in or whatever but honestly I really think guys none of that is the point the point is what is God doing he put us well he put a people who had a scripture then he put a star in the sky to draw who to himself a people that were not his own they were not his own they were the ends of the earth they are out there somewhere and they are now coming to inquire they are being drawn in and this is what I want you to see today y'all this is what God has always been after you know why it's because he's he's worthy of it it's because he is deserving of it because he's not a tribal deity to be worshipped in one language around the world there are 7 000 languages in this world and this God is worthy from praise and glory and fame and renown from all 7 000 of them that's what this is about that God is drawing a people who are not his people to himself and he's doing it by external means and internal compulsion he's doing it by something that is out there and he's doing it by something that is in here maybe he's drawing you in a similar way today the book of Matthew is really interesting about this whole idea of missions maybe you've never thought about this before but I want you to understand the book of Matthew begins in the same way that it ends it's showing God's heart for the nations all right the book of Matthew begins with a star being hung in the sky and the nations are coming to find Christ how does it end it ends by Jesus giving us this great commission in the church go therefore out into all the nations go out into all the world and what make disciples of all peoples of everybody of all the people groups in the world go out and find them and share the gospel with them the great commission comes at the end of this book we are to go out and make disciples but it begins with God drawing people in and it shows his heart for the world you know I think it's interesting and I just want to do this for a moment here but I want to just want to do this for a moment here a bit of a flyby overview because here's what I know a church like mercy hill draws people that have been in the game for a long time and it draws people who have been around this whole thing for very short amount of time some of you are brand new some of you if I said hey what's the bible really about you'd be like man I'm not really sure you know I'm I'm interested there's some external compulsion in my life maybe it's not a star in the sky maybe it's a breakup maybe something happens in your life where man you made some bad decisions and now you're kind of getting right on the on the right track maybe it was a diagnosis maybe it was something awesome maybe you're experiencing incredible success and you're starting to wonder like man is there is there more to what's going I don't know what maybe has brought you here all right but you you might be one who doesn't have a whole background with the bible and maybe you got zero bible knowledge I don't know all right let me tell you in short what the bible is about you ready the bible is a big book but it's one story it's a lot of stories but they all weave together into one and this is basically what it is the bible tells the story like this in the beginning god created the world and he great created humanity but let me tell you something right now he didn't create humans because he needed a friend he needs nothing he didn't create us because he was lonely he didn't create us because he needed a friend this is why he created us he created us because he is so grand and glorious and big that there he he wanted to see other people and other and part of his creation in his image be able to recognize that that's why we're here a lot of people don't like that man they want to say well the world begins with me what did you create it what do you mean it begins with you I just kind of woke up here one day you know I don't know about you it's like that's not no no no god created you for what reason well he created us not because he was lonely he created us so that we would recognize his glory and we would then enjoy him he is glorified in our satisfaction and enjoyment of him and that is why we are here but guess what those humans that he created rebelled and every single one of us have followed their path me first and foremost every single human that has ever walked the face of this earth we understood meant our purpose our calling our future is to live for god to to to honor him and you know what we've done we've rebelled against that romans one says we choose to worship the creation rather than the creator and that war that works its way out into a bunch of sin in our life that idolatry ends up popping up all over the place but here's the deal from adam to us from eve to everyone we have sinned we have fallen short of the glory of god we don't trust what god says is good as if it's good we don't trust what he says when he says things like money sex and power are to be used for god's glory rather than worshiped as if they are god we fall into these things treat people the wrong way and every single one of us you know we fall into sin in different areas of our life and the penalty of that sin is eternal death and separation from god and that absolutely should have been the end of the story but here's what the bible does this is what god has done what god has done is he has said no for my fame for my glory for my renown i will win a people back to myself and we see in the old testament i'm reading a lot of the old testament right now in my bible reading plan um and it's and it's uh man it's just awesome to see god's choosing of his elect in israel and to see him bestow blessings and to see him to see him say man you go this way and it's like this you go this way and it's like this and then how heartbreaking it is to watch how they have walked and to watch how they turn from him time and time and time again and so much of the time what should have happened say what should have what could have happened what god will be in his right to do is to say you have broken this covenant over and over and over again but what does god do in the gospel in the gospel he does what he said he would do at the very beginning you remember what happened when humans sinned the first time god tells them one day i will send the serpent crusher and he will fix this and then he sends him in jesus christ and what's so cool about it what's so cool about it is that when christ goes to the cross i mean in perfection he's a perfect sinless lamb he's the son of god perfect sinless lamb he goes he dies on the cross for us in our place we deserve it he takes it but then what happens is he sort of kicks the door open that it's not just israel any longer it's anyone who comes to him through faith now you are brought in to the people of god now you can be one and i know people want to say well is there a place for ethnic israel and all that man i'm not getting into all that what i'm saying is if you have put your faith in christ you are the people of god now and he is winning people from every tribe tongue and nation what do we see in the gospel y'all jesus came in a manger but he was destined for a cross why to pay the penalty for our sin don't you understand today church that doesn't just wake up and start happening today this has been the heart of god for all eternity this has been the heart of god since he has created humanity even in our sin this is what he is planning to do to bring a people from every tribe tongue and nation to glorify him he is moving heaven around so that he can draw a people from earth you know this is one of the reasons i'll just kind of stop i know there's a heavy message um but isn't this one of the reasons mercy hill while we love adoption and we love adoptive families in our church and we want to support them and hold the rope for them and why it's a foretaste of this we're talking about a family that has no right to be family but they are so because they have been chosen that's why that's what god does for us man he adopts us and in adoption i love this man our church is just filled with these families okay and uh and our family is one of those right we we haven't adopted daughter well what's what's funny about our family is it's funny faith and looks like us okay i mean if you just look at her you would think she is a biological child i mean she's got light skin and all this kind of stuff she's got blonde you know blonde kind of reddish blonde hair and people you know look at him like man she looks like you guys there's a lot of our families you've adopted kids that don't look nothing like you they don't look nothing like you you i mean you know different race different every they're there and and we see those families and what happens you see a picture of what god is going to do creating a family through choice saying decree you are one of us now and it's an incredible picture it's a beautiful picture it is a foretaste i've told you guys before sometimes god gives us a little appetizer you know i love to go to go i love to go to cracker barrel okay i've told you guys this before all right people dog on chain restaurants y'all they got to be a chain for a reason everybody is that not true everybody loves the one-off restaurant well why are they still one off all right well they ain't got enough people coming that's why okay you got a cracker barrel you ain't got that problem all right and i think but you think you go to cracker barrel man the meal is the cap is the catfish okay it just is all right well what do you get first biscuits and cornbread come out they're good they're not the catfish but they're good we get to see that and that's a it's an appetizer it's a foretaste we get to see adoptions in our church and these families that come forward it's just a little bit of a foretaste a picture man this is what god is going to do this is what he is after this is what he is worthy of the star in the sky leading a people who is not his people to worship christ it's pretty awesome man god moves heaven and earth around he moves heaven around to draw people from earth 7 000 languages and god would say i'll be worshipped in every single one of them you know isaiah 42 8 says this i am the lord that is my name and my glory i give to no other my question for us is this man if you've heard kind of this idea of a big god a god who can move heaven around a god god who it's nothing for him to do that it is nothing for him to move around his creation if you speak it into creation you could do whatever you want to with it it's nothing for him god that big is it any wonder why he would move things around to bring a people to himself to worship it makes sense to me right look at what it says in matthew chapter two verse two where is he who is born king of the jews for we saw his star when it rose and we have come to worship him i've said this two or three times i want to make sure you got it though and you can write it down y'all god moved heaven to draw people from earth now i want you to think about this if he has moved a star in the sky people like it was haley's comment it was this it was this who knows okay who cares and in all honesty it's like it's a miracle he listen here's what i want you to understand today can we just catch this today god is in every break of the game and every single thing that happens be very careful i'm not saying that god is causing every single thing that happens in terms of evil god is light and then him is no darkness at all but i promise you this we serve a god so big and so grand and so awesome that he wastes nothing don't matter what's going on every single thing that happens the star in the sky man god is using it i thought about this biden won now trump wins both water in the hands of god to channel how he wants it don't matter it ain't no thing to him it don't it don't matter he he is he is moving this whole world in the direction of his super plan i i think about stars are born stars die economies rise economies fall small things happen huge things happen and you know what it's like man yes some of it grieves the heart of god can break the heart of god it breaks our heart too i even see some of that stuff with our political world and some of the stuff with wars and i mean it grieves us but make no mistake it does not throw god's plan off it doesn't it doesn't mean that all of a sudden he's not going to end up reaping the glory that he deserves you know this star um is something that the the people were looking for it's funny you know why were they looking for this star they were looking for the star probably because a guy named daniel went in exile 500 years earlier now i don't it's hard hard to know okay but it's probably something like that this star actually has there's there's a few different prophecies that end up popping up in matthew chapter two one of them is a story from number chapter 24 about a guy named balaam it's a crazy story donkey talks curses are thrown out it's a crazy story okay but yeah there's a prophecy that comes out of this story with balaam and uh and and this is probably a story that these guys had heard and they knew there's going to be a star and that star is going to lead us to a king that is going to come in some kind of way they had that they had that in their background and that just even further makes the point that i'm making today god wields the universe to bring worship to his son the exile was horrible if you look at the old testament and yet god used it in the plan right the stars moving around that wasn't even the first part of this story it's 500 years earlier probably man it's all about god moving things around for the sake of his renown one of the things i feel like we got to do i got to say this and i want to try to get to an application because we got a lot going on in this service today okay i just got to say this though i think for some of us i've been preaching now for you know 25 minutes and big god big god big god and we're fine with that while we're in here and i know that not everybody's a believer here and i know on our campuses not everybody's a believer but what i'm saying is to the believers we're fine with that in here yes we amen yes god is huge and all the seven thousand languages ought to you know he's after them and all that but do we become a little sheepish about it when we leave these get outside of these walls you know why because in our day and age in the political context and the pluralistic community that we live in today man that kind of talk has gone highly out of favor jesus is the only way god has called the family to be this way you know abortion is is so abhorrent because of and there's there we don't do exceptions and we don't do this and we don't do that like we we stand for life and those things have i don't know if you notice those things have fallen pretty highly out of favor right and so my question is and sometimes i feel like man are we even a little bit man in this pluralistic society are we even a little bit embarrassed by some of the claims you know that god would move all this stuff around and it's all about him and it's all for his glory i sometimes you know i i know you guys would never believe this but i embarrass my kids sometimes okay i i mean i know that's that's very shocking i know but this was so funny we got to go to uncg basketball game uh last year and it was awesome my whole crew landed on the jumbotron all right and it was awesome so my boys are doing the floss okay they're up there this is at uncg in the coliseum all right so they're doing they're doing the floss and they're dancing and they're getting on the jumbotron anna is putting her 15 years of dance moves uh she took dance for 15 years and this is what we got okay so we're dancing here i'm messing around of course dad is videoing the whole thing okay so this is me and then you have my teenage daughter's reaction and i i looked at that and i'm you know this is a heavy sermon i'm trying to break it up a little bit here but you know honestly man sometimes i start going down some of the claims of christ and i wonder if we get outside of these walls if we kind of do this a little bit you know we're just a little bit like man that has fallen so out of favor in our culture here's what i want to tell you today here's what i want to tell you today okay wait a minute wait a minute but do we believe that god hung a star in the sky to bring the magi 800 miles to worship king jesus okay do we believe that i don't know i know not everybody does but yes if we believe that then what we understand is there is something worthy about the sun that is worthy of the praise from all the peoples all the way to the ends of the earth and that should create gratitude in us and it should create a resolve it should create a backbone that is willing to stand and speak the truth and not hide but speak the truth even in a pluralistic and politically hot climate with some of the things that we know to be true from the scripture and here's what i want you to see this is the thing man it's not just the star but it's the scripture look and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people he inquired of them where the christ was to be born and they told him in bethlehem of judia they knew they have the answer it ain't but six miles down the road actually they know where he's going to be for so it is written by the prophet talking about mica oh and you owe bethlehem in the land of juda by no means least among the rulers of juda for from you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people israel i want you to think about this sequence y'all this is very important what i'm gonna say very important the star got them close but the scripture led them home and that's very important for us because some of us today might be seeing some things in that external circumstance there aren't things that are going on in our life a shake-up a new relationship a diagnosis there could be some things going on like that here's the thing what we see what we start to see in a sign we fully begin to see in scripture what we start to see in a shake-up in our life or maybe it's actually a miracle someone is healed man a muslim in a context has a dream what what we what we start to see in a miracle or a sign or a shake-up we've got to then clarify and and get into the scripture because it is listen the sign leads us to the scripture the scripture is what leads us to the sun what nature nature begins the scripture completes and so we've got to break open and get into the word i was thinking about this i saw tom brady one time when he had won his third super bowl all right they were asking him because this might be where you are maybe you're experiencing a lot of success in your life right now that's actually the shake-up i thought this would be better he had won three super bowls and the essence of the interview that i watched was him saying man i've won three super bowls and he said this is his words he said god there's got to be more to life than this i mean for his case there was more like four more super bowls okay so i get that but at the same time at the same time you understand what he was saying i thought this would feel different you ever felt that thought this would be different you know maybe that's the shake-up i don't know what's going on trouble at home trouble with children i don't know what's happening in your life that shake-up is probably enough to get you here close but the only way you go from here to saved from here to a child of the king from here to eternity in heaven is not by getting close it's by getting all the way home and the way you get all the way home is you see who christ is i've already shared the gospel once but you see that he has come and he has stood in your place now you admit your sin believe abc believe in what he has done for you and confess him as the lord of your life and that's what takes you from close to home you get there from the scripture here you know you got to understand it you got to want it here's what i call you to do today as i close follow god as he draws the nations okay follow him in this the first thing i want to say very clearly is and you you can't go about thinking about how you can be leveraged to bring god glory by the nations coming to him like these magi if you're not a believer yourself what's in your life is it apathy or are you on fire what is it in your life are you bored of the truth or are you bound to it what's going on with you which one of these characterizes you are you red hot right now i want to call you to think about something here you know it's funny these magi you know you might you might be on one one side of this thing okay what were the magi man the magi had the fire the hunger but they didn't have the truth the scholars had the truth jesus wasn't but six miles away they didn't even go you understand we have to know some things but we have to have that zeal for some things my question is if that stuff is coming together in your life right now however it is that you got here there's a thousand circumstances what i'm talking about millions of circumstances that brought you here today is the zeal there is the truth starting to break in here's the thing you don't know if that zeal is going to be there tomorrow things can change faith is a gift god is god is drawing you i pray today you would take on that uh that that that that jump in and talk to who brought you here come grab me after the service come grab one of our pastors we want to talk to you today but the other one that i want to say is this man how can we be involved and uh and seeing the nations come to him y'all this is really it this is the end the star led the nations to come that's the beginning of matthew you know it's the end of matthew the spirit leads us to go the star brought them in the spirit sends us out and so i want to call you today hey what about it man how can you be involved how can you be involved maybe for you it's being on a go team this next year listen i love this time of year okay 2024 is about to be in the books and this is one of my favorite times a year and the reason is because i love looking back at what god has done and i love thinking about what he's going to do next year right this is the time fathers you got kids in the house lead your family think about not i'm not listen i'm not knocking disney although i have not disney a lot in my life okay i'm not knocking disney or i'm not knocking whatever i'm just saying man it's it's it's your decision to sort of stand up and say hey our family needs to be on one of these go teams our kids need to see something that's different and we and we want to do that together and i'm going to challenge you to think about that challenge you to do that put that on the vision board as you guys are going out in our lobbies today every single one of our go teams it's already it's not man we've already got this stuff planned out there's a bunch of them that kids can do there's a bunch of them that kids cannot do because they're they're pretty they're pretty tough be honest with you all right there's a there's something here for everyone to do maybe get on a go team maybe give generously right here at the end of the year you guys know this man deeper we're about to celebrate deeper we're about to do some cool stuff got a huge announcement for y'all i can't wait to tell um we got some cool stuff we're gonna do but man we're giving to deeper all the way to the end of the year and some of you in this church i'm talking about could radically change the trajectory of what god is doing we've prayed for 100 participation that's still the main goal man we get here two weeks left there are some of you that have given it away that's man you could do 10x 100x they could change what god does here man give generously we'll have a chance to reach more people if that happens um hey city project resident this is cool can we celebrate this let me put it in context first okay at christmas time based on our records the highest number of sent applications now that means all of our college stuff that we do in the summer which is so strategic okay the highest number of applications we had ever had at a christmas time ever was like 30 and we have over 50 right now right can we praise god for that hey that fuels the pipeline the future church planters okay man we've been telling you guys this for years and years and years well here's what's about to happen nico williams is about to plant that church greenhouse church for antes campus and you know what we met him on the college campus it takes 10 years to build a church planner all right and that's fine we got it we got the time but that's the thing this is the funnel we're going to see these these young people get reached jump into our process and all that kind of stuff um so hey if you're a city project student or resident you need to think about this and jump in maybe you're on the on the fence get off the fence let's let's do it i promise you you won't regret it all right and then the last thing i would say man is pray man let's pray let's join god in praying for our sent ones i've challenged you to do this before i'm going to challenge you again do you have a day that is dedicated for the sent ones that are behind the enemy lines from this church that we pray for them and if not no guilt let's start though you know it's not a shame thing it's a let's get going okay let's make sure that people that we sent are being lifted up from the home front let's pray father we thank you lord we bask in your greatness and grandness today you are so huge we are small but we are in your hands and we trust you what i pray there be some people here today give their life to christ some people be here today that decide next year is going to be the year our family is on a go team or something in that effect we're going to take steps we want the nations to find you we know the spirit has sent us out god i pray that you would continue to do this work in our church in christ's name