So, Good morning. Happy December. Where did November go, right? Wow, okay. Well, it's December and we can still see green grass. That's my... I suppose, are some of you wanting a white Christmas? Somebody at my, okay, brother-in-law down in Arizona was, so are you hoping for a white, well, okay, half inch, that's just enough to cover, and then melt the next day, right? Okay, good enough. Well, we're gonna sing a song, then we'll have our communion time. And so, Bob's gonna come and lead us. First one here is, Thou dost leave thy throne. 127. Alright, you guys ready? We're gonna stand and sing 127. We'll sing 1, 2, and 4. 1, 2, and 4, page 127. O come, O come, O come, O come, O come, O come, O come, to Bethlehem. Children of Israel, sing of freedom's new day. The Holy Ghost is come to reign in Israel. O come to Bethlehem, O Jesus, there is room in my heart for Keep us, O Lord, with a living heart. Let us set Thy people free. While the clock keeps t'chorning, Thou art the one, daily morning calvary. O come to earth, Lord Jesus, You may be seated for comedian. Well, looks like you all survived Thanksgiving. Anybody have something that they just can't wait to tell somebody about? Something exciting happened at Thanksgiving? Maybe somebody you got to talk to about the Lord or anything? Anybody? I'm waiting. Okay, we got to go back and do it all over again, right? Yes. I got to see all my grandchildren, which is really grateful for and my 15 year old grandson Tommy that you guys prayed for last year when he had broken arm and stuff. He told me that he's been praying before all of his games and I gave him a Bible and I wrote some nice stuff in the cover of it and He got teary-eyed, and he was very grateful to get that Bible. And he said, Grandma, I do pray. So I'm just praying that it's a work in his life, and that I can be an encouragement to him and the other kids to always do the right thing. And I'm thankful that we had a good dinner, and we got to see everybody, and we're able to be here today. So I'm thankful for this church. Yeah. So how many grandkids are we up to now? 11. 11. And three great-grandkids. Wow. OK. Okay, we've got 11. Do we have 12? You've got 12? No. You've kept it a secret all this time. No, go ahead, if you've got something to share. For two of my grandchildren, after the election, or even before the election, my oldest granddaughter, she texted me and she had a picture and she said she voted. Yeah, good job, right. Yeah, well good. Yeah, very good, alright. All right. So Matthew, you get to vote next time around, right? Have we got you indoctrinated yet? So no. OK. All right. Well, good. Alright, well, we're going to share some familiar thoughts here with you about the Lord. We kind of got on both ends here. About the night before His crucifixion, and then we're talking about His birth. But that's what He ultimately came to do. We don't think of it that way. And of course, when we're little, we're not thinking about dying anyway. But, and ours doesn't accomplish what Christ was able to do. He came to seek and to save those that were lost. And of all the things that we have need of, you know, we could probably go around the room and mark, write stuff down, all the things that we think we need. But our greatest need was that of a savior. because our biggest problem, you know, we might have health problems or finance problems or all kinds of other things, but whether we realize it or not, our greatest problem is our sin problem. because it's not something we can go to the pharmacy and get a pill for to fix. But Jesus Christ knew what we needed and was willing to go to the cross and ultimately to die in our place as our substitute and shed his blood. The wages of sin is death, the Bible tells us. And our death wouldn't accomplish that, but his is a perfect sacrifice. He died for us in our place, shed his blood, and provides forgiveness for all who choose to believe. It's not automatic, but we choose to trust Jesus Christ alone for our salvation. He's able to forgive us of our sins and give us that gift of eternal life. You know, and you might have all kinds of presents for Christmas. with fancy bows and wrapping and everything else. But it's nothing to compare with eternal life, okay? Whatever we get, it has a beginning date and an end date. But eternal life is going to last forever. And we're all going to live forever. But the question is, where are we going to spend it? Are we going to be in heaven or are we going to be in hell? Well, we see that Christ came to do the work that was necessary so that we can spend eternity with Him. He wants us to spend eternity with Him. You know, that's pretty awesome. You might have some relatives that you're kind of hoping that they don't move in on you for about a month or two, or a year or two, or so on. But He wants us to come to live with Him forever. Well, we see here, he's writing to Paul, and he's sharing this with the Corinthian believers, and to remind him that last night before he's betrayed and ends up going to the cross, He shares with His disciples there in 1 Corinthians 11, verse 23, for He says, I have received of the Lord that which I also delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus that same night in which He was betrayed took bread. Let's ask a blessing on the bread, please. Heavenly Father, we thank You for the bread. We thank You for what it represents, the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank You that He was willing to go to the cross to allow people to nail him to that cross, ultimately to give up his life for us. And so we thank you for the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus as we think of this bread. In Jesus' name, amen. And he tells us, and the Lord Jesus, that same night in which he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he break it and said, take eat, this is my body, which is broken for you, this do in remembrance of me. We see after the same manner, he also took the cup. Let's thank the Lord for the cup. Heavenly Father, we thank you for what this cup represents. The shed blood of Jesus Christ. We thank you that. Your word tells us without the shedding of blood, there's no remission. There's no forgiveness of sin. Nobody else's blood. Could be a replacement for Jesus. His was the only perfect sacrifice. There's no sin in his life. And yet he was willing to shed his blood to provide forgiveness for all who choose to believe. Lord, we pray that each one here today might have or soon come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, to trust in him alone for their salvation. So we thank you for this cup and the shed blood of the Lord Jesus in Christ's name. Amen. And after he had taken the cup, when he'd sup, saying, this cup is the New Testament in my blood. This do you as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you do show the Lord's death till he come. Okay, well we see the disciples sang a song and we've got a couple more to sing as well. This next one here is Angels from the Realms of Glory, 131. 131. All right guys, let's stand and sing 131, Angels from the Realms of Glory. We'll sing, let me see here. We'll sing all three, the first three verses, 131. Come and worship, come and worship, worship Christ the new-born King. Step out in the fields of Bible, working fire for time. God in worship, God in worship, worship Christ the new born King. Sing hymns to the Lord God in worship, hymns to the Lord God in worship, All right now we're gonna sing a little town of Bethlehem, right? Yeah, that's fine. All right. Now we can look at the projector. It's in the book, too. It's 141. We'll sing all four verses in 141. Or if you'd rather look at that picture, you can do that, too. Oh, in the world of mankind, ♪ How still we see thee lie ♪ ♪ Above the deep and dreamless sky ♪ ♪ Where silent stars so high ♪ ♪ May in thy hands we shine ♪ ♪ And be your light to guide us home ♪ ♪ The hopes and fears of all the years ♪ ♪ Are met with me tonight ♪ ♪ For Christ is Lord of heaven ♪ ♪ And heaven all above ♪ ♪ While mortals sleep, the angels sing ♪ ♪ Their watch upon the moon ♪ And holy night, holy night, all is calm, All is bright, all is calm, ♪ The wondrous gift is here ♪ So God invites the young men ♪ As to the sins of his men ♪ Oh, hear me, hear this young man ♪ I bring this book of sin ♪ Where weak souls will receive his spirit O Holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray, as Thou our Saviour didst enter, be born in us today. We hear the pistils sing, Jesus' blood will melt our hands down, All right, you may be seated. We'll have some announcements. Okay, so yeah, I'll do that. So we have some new tracks for Christmas. Good time to be able to tell those that don't know the Lord. It's a perfect time to be able to give out a track, especially during the Christmas time. There's also our daily bread has God is with us. So Christmas readings for you as well. Upcoming we have the birthday party for Jesus on the 15th. That's going to be at 915. So there's a sign up sheet for that. Pass that around. And you know that it's green outside. But the snow will fall eventually. We have an open slot for the 8th, so I'll pass it this way. And then we have our Wednesday night Bible study. We're studying the book of Revelation. So you can come and read about that. Or you can live stream as well. And then kitchen. I need an assistant in the kitchen if someone wants to help with that. And then after church today, we're going to be decorating the tree. So if you'd like to stay and help us with that, you're welcome to stay for that as well. So now we were going to sing. You guys can look at the screen, but if you want to look in the book, it's 135. You want to sing all five? The angels of the Lord did bow, and for a short while, and for a short while, ♪ Jesus, Lord of all the world ♪ ♪ This day ♪ ♪ Opened with a pure soul ♪ ♪ And has led me to victory ♪ ♪ Led me to victory ♪ ♪ Through the raging storm of war ♪ ♪ And led me to victory ♪ All right, you can greet one another. Good salutations. What a nice evening. Thank you. So each Sunday here in December we will be singing Christmas carols. We've got I think five Sundays and we've got at least 25 songs. You may have to wait a couple weeks before we sing your favorite song but we try to get most of them in. And we'll be also doing messages that tie into Christmas one way or another, okay? And today we're gonna be talking about what we find there in Isaiah 9, 6, what's in a name? Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day. We thank you for each one here today. Pray for those that may be traveling yet today for Tyler and Lindsey and the children for Allie as she's traveling back to Michigan to go back to school for Dalton and his family, traveling back home from Kansas. And we pray that you'll give them journey mercies. We pray you'll continue to strengthen Patty, help her to be feeling better. Thank you, got them back here safely from Michigan. And we pray that you'll guide us in our time here together now in Jesus' name, amen. Some of you will identify with this more than others. But if you can remember back to the 60s, that's going back a ways, right, before some were around. But back in the 60s, San Francisco had a section, a district in town, Hag Ashbury. Does that ring a bell? Back then, well, maybe it's that way now. I mean, at one point, it had reverted to high rent district. But when they were there, many of the hippies moved out, went on down to Santa Cruz. And they had children, and they got married, and not in any particular order of that. But they didn't name their children Melissa or Brett. People in the mountains around Santa Cruz grew accustomed to the children out playing with their Frisbees and little kids by the name of Time Warp and Spring Fever. Eventually, Moonbeam, Earth, Love, Precious Promise all ended up in the public schools. And so when kindergarten teachers first met Fruit Stand, sorry, in the fall they were, the parents were told to put the child's name on one side of the name tag and on the other side the stand or the place where they were supposed to get off the bus. So it was for Fruit Stand. The teachers thought it was a little bit odd, but they kind of got used to it as the day went by. And they asked him, would you like to play with the blocks, Fruit Stand? And he didn't have much to say. Fruit Stand, how about a snack? And he accepted hesitantly. And by the end of the day, he didn't seem much odder than Ocean or Sunray or some of the other kids' names. At dismissal time, the teachers And the children went out to the bus's fruit stand. Do you know which bus you get on? And he didn't answer. And that wasn't strange, because first day, kids are a little shy, didn't have much to say. And so the teachers instructed, again, the parents to write their name on one side and where they were to get off on the bus on the back side. And so the teachers went to a fruit stand And they turned over the tag, and neatly on the other side was Anthony. Some of you will catch on to that about halfway through today. He was supposed to get off of Fruit Stand, not name the kid. So anyway, I'm glad they're not doing that nowadays. So we look at a portion of scripture here. And if you will be looking here, if you have your, your Bibles, we'll be looking at Isaiah chapter nine and verse six. which tells us, for unto us a child is born, and unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. And so as we think about names in scripture, we see that names are important to God. He's the one who started it out, using names for different things. Back in Genesis chapter one, during creation, he called the light day and the darkness he called night. And then the next day he's talking about the expanse in the sky. And then he talked about the land that was around and then the waters he called seas. And so he had names for things. And we find that, you know, God had created Adam, gave him a name and he called him Adam instead of Hey you, you know. And he gave him a job and his first job there was to name all the animals. Later on, we see Eve comes into the picture and she was given a name. It tells us there in chapter three, verse 20, and Adam called his wife's name Eve because she was the mother of all living. We see that God gave people names having to do with sometimes their birth. And it meant something, okay? Now we kind of use it because it sounds good with our last name or it's after one of our grandparents. I mean, I ended up with John because both of my granddads were named John. So, okay, we got another one coming along here, right? But if you look at scripture and we find people in scripture like Isaac, it meant laughing. Remember, Sarah laughed when they said that she was gonna have a baby. Jacob meant deceiver. Moses meant to draw out. Remember, he was taken up out of the water ultimately. And So sometime you might Google your name, see what it means. Sometimes it's something you're, oh, that's kind of neat, or, oh, why'd they name me that? But we look at people throughout history, and often they were given names that went along with what they were accomplishing in life. like Alexander the Great, William the Conqueror, Simon the Zealot, and John the Baptist. And yet, again, those names meant something. I don't know if they even do that anymore, especially in a big city. Maybe you have to be in a small town for that to happen. But they used to give birth announcements in the Saturday paper or Sunday. But those parents, did they call their children that name for a particular reason, because it meant a certain thing? We have a different type of birth announcement as we look here in Isaiah 9, 6. We've got the birth of the Messiah and the birth of the Lord Jesus being referred to. And again, hundreds of years before it actually happened. God wasn't just kind of winging it. He knew what was going to happen, when it was going to happen. And so we see this birth announcement talking about the Lord Jesus. And which means Jehovah saves. And it's a special name. It's the one who makes the difference in our lives where we're going to spend eternity. In Acts 4, verse 12, it says, neither is there salvation in any other. Okay, there's a lot of gods out there, small g, but neither is there salvation in any other, for there's none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. It tells us to on into the future, what? the name of Jesus is going to mean. Everybody's gonna know it at some point in time. In Philippians 2, verse 10 and 11, it says, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow things in heaven, things in earth, things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. And so one of these days, everybody's gonna kneel before Jesus, either as their Lord or as their judge. And so we wanna look at these names, these descriptions of the Lord Jesus here in 9-6, and look at each one of them for a few moments. The first one here, it's a wonder of his name. He's called Wonderful. And we think about his birth. It was wonderful. This is the first time and the last that God became man, the virgin birth of the Lord Jesus. He was sinless. The sin nature comes down through the father, and that's why Joseph wasn't a part of this, but at virgin born, Jesus was sinless coming into this world. His life was wonderful. He gave us examples on how we ought to live. He acted, how he acted, how he reacted to situations, how to treat one another, challenging us to love one another. His teachings were wonderful. He told us various truths and principles that we can live by. And the thing is that when we're looking at Jesus, we can know the truth. Sometimes you read stuff nowadays, especially if it's something that's online, is this true or is this fake? Or you get an email that tells you your account's closed and you need to contact this group. Look out. Lots of scams going on. Well, there's no scamming in the scriptures, all right? We don't get to the end of Revelation and God says, oh, just kidding. No, he doesn't. Oh, it's true, it's accurate. And again, like I said, he is the truth. And he tells us this, there in John 14, six, where he says, I am the way, not one of the ways, but the way, the truth and the life. No man cometh unto the father, but by me. His miracles were wonderful. He showed us that he was indeed God. He illustrated his power. And he had the ability to heal the lame and the sick and the blind. He was able to raise the dead, to feed four or 5,000 people with a few loaves and a few fish. Amazing things that Jesus was able to accomplish again. God in the flesh. And his transfiguration was wonderful as well. cleared up any doubt as to who he was as the disciples saw him just kind of glowing up there, transformed before their eyes. And his death was wonderful. Now that might sound a little bit strange. Never anybody describing death as wonderful, but yet it was because of what it was able to accomplish. His sacrifice there on the cross, He became sin, your sin, my sin, the sins of the world were placed upon Jesus. And He died for us. He shed His blood for provide cleansing for all who would believe. Again, as we mentioned earlier with communion, the Bible tells us very plainly that the wages of sin is death. Now, how many sins does it take to make us a sinner? One. Is there anybody that ever lived that didn't sin beside Jesus? No. But the thing was, we were born sinners. We came into this world. You go to the hospital and you go to the nursery and you see all those cute little babies in there. And I'm sorry, they're all a bunch of little sinners, okay? We're the big sinners, but they're little. They didn't have to do anything wrong to become a, they started out life as a sinner. And until they trust Christ, they're still in that sin. Although the babies and this, I don't wanna get too far off on that one, but if a baby passes away, there's good proof in scripture that they're taken up to be with the Lord. And, And so yeah, Christ's blood, Christ's cleansing is able to cover them as well. But how about it this morning? Have you believed? Have you trusted Jesus Christ alone for your salvation? Folks, that's the most important decision you're ever gonna make in this life, because it determines whether you're gonna spend eternity in heaven or eternity in hell. And none of us know, we might think, oh, I'm gonna, I've got old genes, you know, not the blue jeans, but you know, my dad lived to be 90 some and my mom lived to be 90 some, surely I'm gonna be 90 some. Do people still have car not in their nineties and life or other things that do. We never we don't kno And there's no second chance, okay? Any decision that we make has to be made in this life. There's no decisions made after we're dead and gone that's going to turn anything around, okay? You don't get another shot at it. Christ alone for salvation. It's not in our church membership or baptism or any other thing that we might've done somewhere along the way, but he's the one who's able to forgive us of our sins and give us that gift of eternal life. And again, this is the advantage of having the complete Bible is that we know that he didn't stay dead, okay? And his resurrection was wonderful as well. We see that he was in the grave for at least a part of three days, rose from the grave, proof that his father, our Heavenly Father, accepted his sacrifice. But the thing too is that he had the power over life and death. He arose himself, okay? There wasn't rolling away the stone, going in and doing CPR paddles or anything else, you know? No, he arose, okay? And it wasn't like, okay, why was the stone rolled away? Did it have to be rolled away so he could get out? No, so we could see in and see that he wasn't there, right? Did Jesus have to have the stone rolled away? No, I don't think so. Because when it come time, when the disciples were in the room and it's all locked up, he came into the room, okay? So he had that amazing power and has the power of life and death. And because Jesus Christ arose from the dead, he has the power to raise us up, okay? That's important to know. Because if he's dead over there in Israel somewhere, in a tomb somewhere, how's he going to help us? That's the way it is with Muhammad and Buddha and all the other ones that claim to be some kind of a God. They're dead in a tomb somewhere. They can't help anybody. But we have a risen Savior. And He's, as the song says, He's in the world today. And He's able to raise us up. This is a little bit extended passage here, but just to remind us of the fact that the Lord is coming back. and we need to be ready. We don't know when it's gonna happen, but we don't wanna be left behind. 1 Thessalonians 4.13 through 17 says, but I would not have you to be ignorant. He's not trying to put the people down, but he says, I want you to really understand what's going on here. Cause some of them thought, well, if you die and the Lord comes back, you miss out. No, it's whether you're dead or alive, as a believer, we're gonna be taken to be with the Lord. He says, but I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those that are asleep. And the Bible talks about believers as being asleep, because we're gonna wake up one of these days, okay? That you sorrow not, even as others that have no hope. For if we believe in Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent, and that word prevents, I'm not playing games with scripture, but the meaning of it has changed. The idea here is that will not precede them, okay? It's not like the living get to go first and then the dead. No, it says here, the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep, for the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout. Okay, so he's going to come down as far as the clouds. There's going to be a shout with a voice of the archangel, with a trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Now I, lack of humor here, but I'm saying, you know, the dead need a six foot head start. Okay. So, you know, raise them up. And then we, which are alive and remain are caught up to be with the Lord. We're going up together. All right. And Then we, which are alive and remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore, comfort one another with these words." Now, for some, that might sound like science fiction or something, folks. But everything else God's told us about in scripture has happened just like Jesus said it would. And there's every reason to believe that when he talks about the rapture, that that's gonna happen just like he said it would. And so we need to be ready. Nobody knows the day or the hour. There are some through the years that have tried to come up with some kind of a date, but they've missed it. But then there's his ascension. He's arisen from the grave and moving about with the disciples for some 40 days after the resurrection. And then he sends back into heaven. And the thing is though, they were, man, Jesus is gone. Now what are we going to do? Well, Jesus knew that they needed somebody and he sends his spirit, the Holy Spirit into the heart and life of every believer. And there is a positive side to that. And that when Jesus was here on earth, he, even though he was God in the flesh, could only be at one place at one time. Whereas the Holy Spirit goes into the life of each and every believer, no matter where we're at, okay? So the Holy Spirit's just as much in Tyler in Minnesota as he is in Dalton in Kansas or wherever they're at along the way. And Allie, you need the Holy Spirit when you're going through Chicago, right? Playing Dodge car, just getting that lane behind the truck and let the rest of them go whizzing by. Right. But yeah. And so he sent us his spirit to, to indwell us. And John 14 tells us that he's preparing a place for us. That's pretty awesome when you start to think about it. I mean, there are different builders. Sometimes you hear advertisement, you know, these different builders will build you a house, you know, and then you, I remember somebody that had a house built and it wasn't too long afterwards that the windows didn't want to go up and down and the doors would stick and, you know, it just wasn't quite put together just quite right. But Jesus knows everything about us. And this, I don't have scripture to back this one up, but Jesus knows us inside out. Jesus knows our favorite color. I don't think every room and the mansions he's building are all gonna just be white. I have a notion that he, you're going to have some rooms in there that are going to be your favorite color. And he knows whether you like hardwood floors or whether you want some nice carpet, okay? You know, it's, he knows ahead of time. You don't have to go through the list and check this stuff off, you know, and pick out a color chart. No, it's going to be done. And you're going to walk in and go, wow. I think our jaws are going to be sore for a while when we get to heaven. We're just going to be walking around with them. You know, amazing what God has in store for us. We see too, though, that there's wisdom in his name, Counselor. In the therapeutic age in which we live, we hear the word counselor and we immediately begin to think of some therapist or psychiatrist, some person that we're going to tell all of our troubles to, and they're going to try to encourage us and give us some advice on how to handle all of our personal problems. That's not the kind of counselor I don't think that Isaiah is talking about here. But, You know, different people surround themselves with people that will give them good counsel. You know, the President-to-be, okay, you know, has got Elon Musk and all these other, you know, brainiacs around him to give him good advice. we've got the King of Kings and Lord of Lords as our counselor, okay? He's not going to say, well, why don't we try this? And if that doesn't work, we'll try this. He's not guessing, he knows, all right? And so when he gives us direction, he's going to be giving us the straight scoop, okay? He's given us the truth. He knows what's the right thing. And so he's going to counsel us. And the thing is, our counselor is always available. Don't you love it when you call him, maybe it's some kind of an office. And I've been trying to work with the Alpha Women's Center, they need to get a new door and been working with us. It's a special door because they have a button that they can push to open or allow the lock to open so people can come in, but they don't want just everybody walking in and having a hard time with that, you know, it's like, oh, well. We can't, this guy doesn't do good work anymore, and so we're working with somebody else. And anyway, on goes, so I call, I went up a step. I said, I want the supervisor. Maybe we can get something happened here. So he assured me, but boy, we're going to jump right on that. Well, I hadn't heard anything in a week or two. So I call up and, well, yeah, we're out of the office until the 30th of November. I need to say, I went deer hunting for a week and a half, okay? But I don't know if that's what he's doing or not, but he's always available. And he has our undivided attention. It isn't like, okay, you got 15 minutes, go. And then next, time's up, next. No, and he's there to comfort us, to encourage us. We're not just a number. And he knows how to help us. He's not guessing at it. And he guides us in the right way. We want good advice, all right? Okay, Marie and I like to go eat at this Chinese place once in a while. And they still give away the fortune cookies. They're not near as good as they used to be. I don't, I can't even remember my last one, but, and I don't know where he picked it up, okay? But he found, Alex, our five-year-old grandson, he found this little slip of paper on the counter and he picks it up and he takes it to Maureen and it says, it says here, you're supposed to buy me a dinosaur. That boy loves dinosaurs, big ones, little ones, love, doesn't matter. But where he got that, I don't know. Maybe he got some help from his sisters or something, I don't know. But yeah, so, you know. The guy's not using the fortune cookies to figure out what our future is. And he gives us the information that we need and where we ought to go, what's the right path to take. Now, again, it's up to us to follow his advice, right? He's given us good advice in scripture, but we need to follow it. It's like, eh, I'm not so sure about that. You know, well, there's also wealth in his name. He's called the mighty God. Now, we're not just talking about dollars and cents here, but we're talking about the fact that he's all powerful. He's a creator, the sustainer of this universe. He's not some little weak God, right? And again, when we say wealth, we're not just talking about money, but abundance of power. And Jesus has been given all power in heaven and earth, scripture tells us. And Jesus is not like, and you can pick somebody else if you want, but the one that came to my mind was, he's not like Arnold Schwarzenegger, okay? That who once was strong and powerful, I think he was like Mr. Universe or something. And, but as time went on, you know, gravity took over, you know, and those big muscles here are kind of hanging down here, you know. Now I still wouldn't want to arm wrestle the guy, but nevertheless, you know, he's not, he's not growing older and weaker. All right. Jesus is just as powerful now as he was when he stepped out of that tomb 2000 years ago. And again, he created it all, heaven and earth, this universe. And so whether it's large or small, Jesus is able to handle it. And as incredible as it might be here, here we have the child as the son and as the mighty God. And he's not any less powerful than the father. They're equal, okay? He says there in Revelation 1.8, I am the alpha and the mega, okay? That's like saying A to Z, all right? The beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is and which was, And which is to come the almighty. There's nothing too hard for thee. I think I put these next couple of verses in your bulletin, didn't I? Or in your, is that Jeremiah 32? Is that in there somewhere? Okay, good. You might, you want to look these up. These might be some good verses to memorize, all right? Because there's nothing too hard for God. And I kind of, I do it in reverse because Jeremiah 32, 27 asks a question and then 17 kind of answers it. 27 says, behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is there anything too hard for me? Well, then you look at verse 17 says, ah, Lord God, behold, thou hast made the heavens and the earth by thy great power and stretched out arm. And there is nothing too hard for thee." We have a God, there's nothing too hard for him. You're not going to stump the Lord Jesus. You know, it's not like, oh man, I was hoping that would never come. And it makes it personal. It's something we can claim because he tells us there in Jeremiah 33, three, he says, call unto me. Okay. Talk to the Lord in prayer, call unto me. He says, I will answer thee. and show the great and mighty things which thou knowest not." See, the Lord can answer our prayers. He can meet needs in our life that are way beyond our ability to meet. And He knows just exactly what we need. And He has the power to make it happen. He can enable us to do things that we couldn't do all by ourselves. We see here too that there's worship in his name. He's referred to also as the everlasting father. And he says, if you know Jesus, you also know the father. Now, the disciples seem to be having a little bit of a question, you know, and they were saying, Philip, there in John 14, verse eight and nine, Philip's asking the Lord, saying, can you show us the father? And Jesus says to him, well, If you've seen me, you've seen the father, okay? We're alike. And what is it about the father? Well, we see here that the father is also a life giver. We're told there in John 3.16, rather, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. He's not talking about just extending your life, you know, for six months or a year or so on. Oh, he's gonna give us everlasting life, life without end. That's hard to sometimes wrap your mind around because everything else we come across has a beginning and an end, all right? And this tree, I don't know how old that tree is. We didn't count the rings. Somebody tell me, is that a 10 year old tree? Okay, let's say 10 years ago, that was a little seedling and it came up. It's going to have an end. By the end of the month, it's going to be out there on the curb and the truck going to pick it up and haul it off somewhere, grind it up. Everything else has a beginning and end. Some of those nice looking cars out there. There's going to be an end to those one of these days, all right? Sorry, hopefully you got it paid off before they haul it away. But yeah, everything has a beginning, but we're going to live forever with the Lord and it's for real. And it's not, okay, does any of us want to live forever in the body that we got right now? Can you, I mean, we got, we got more, have more aches and pains. I think about Abraham and some of these other guys that, you know, living to 150 years old or something. Oh man, he gets, after sleeping on the ground in that tent, you know, he's camping out, it's not for kids. No, but in, or old people, but, No, he tells us that he changes us. He gives us a new nature. And he says, if there's any man be in Christ, and we are in Christ once we trust Christ as Savior, we're a new creature. Old things are passed away. Behold, all things become new. Lord's able to take that eraser and just wipe away all our sin, giving us new life and a life to live for him, to serve him. It's also, there's a welcome in his name when he's called the Prince of Peace. We'll talk more about peace here next week, Lord willing. But peace sometimes is hard to describe. Now that could have changed. I haven't heard any news today or anything, but last I heard there was gonna be a ceasefire. I think that's what they're calling it, between Hezbollah and Israel. You don't know, again, what's true, what isn't, whether United States arm twisted them, you know, we won't give you the ammunition and the arms and everything else you need until you do this little ceasefire with them. I don't know if that's true or not, but whether it holds up, you know, hello, you know, scripture talks about when they say peace, peace, peace, and there is no peace, okay? They talk a lot about it, but it doesn't happen very often. I read once, and I don't remember the number now, about the number of different peace treaties that have been signed through the years that have all been broken. It's easy to write peace at the top and sign your name at the bottom, but making it happen, something else. But Christ is able to give us peace. And it tells us that he came to give us rest. There in Matthew 11, 28, he says, come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Maybe I'll put that out on the sign. I've seen it on church signs before, where it says, no, N-O, no Jesus, no peace. And then under it, it's K-N-O-W, know Jesus, know peace. It's a big difference whether you know Jesus or not, whether there's going to be any peace in your heart and life. There's different kinds of peace. We don't really have time to go into that today, but there's peace with God. There's a peace of God and there's peace from God. There was a widow who had rest in peace put on her husband's tombstone. And then she found out that he left her out of his will. And then she added, till I come. Yeah, well, God's not like that. He doesn't give you peace and then take it away, right? But God's word tells us how we can have peace and what he wants to accomplish. A lot of us learn Romans 8, 28, and we can rattle that off really quick. All things work together for good. But we need to read the next verse too, when it talks about what God wants to accomplish in our life. And it tells us that he wants to conform us, mold us, shapen us into the image of his son, the Lord Jesus. And we kind of like the idea of being called a Christian, a follower of Christ, but he doesn't want us just to be a name only. He wants it to be an action. He wants us to be like him. And I came across another one that was talking about a diet center. Okay, maybe we wait till January to do the diet thing. You know, we got to work in Thanksgiving and Christmas, you know, and then we all need the diet. But a lady there at the diet center told her to go home, said, do you have a mirror on the door there in your bedroom? Yeah, okay. Well, you go home and you draw a picture of what you want to look like when you're done with your diet. And so she went home and she drew this picture on the mirror. And she continued to diet and exercise and do all the things that she was supposed to do. And then once a week, she'd stand before the mirror to see if she fit the image yet, you know. But, you know, to begin with, there's things here and there that don't quite fit into that picture that she was hoping to look like. And so she kept at it. And finally, as she stood before the mirror, she fit inside that picture that she had drawn. Well, it's not that we're all gonna look like Jesus physically when we get there, but he wants us to be like him. Our character, our spiritual life, our thoughts, our actions, to be like Christ. And folks, that's gonna happen. But we ought not to say, well, yeah, that'll happen when we get to heaven. No, we ought to be working on it now. With God's help to become more and more like the Lord Jesus as the years go by. So we've seen here from Isaiah 9, 6, written some 600, 700 years before the Lord Jesus was born. And the prophet Isaiah is telling us who's coming. And he came just like he said he would. And we have that wonderful Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, as we're entered into just kind of barely got into December, you know, Christmas is on ahead. But sometimes Christmas time can be a bit stressful. You manage to make it through Thanksgiving, but you got Christmas on ahead. And sometimes it gets a little stressful. Just trying to think about all the places you're supposed to go, what all you're supposed to buy, what all you're supposed to do somewhere along the way. Maybe you ought to just sit back a little bit and enjoy the peace that Christ came to deliver to each one of us. Again, Isaiah 9, 6, for unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given. The government shall be upon his shoulder. and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." We didn't talk much about the government here, but during that millennial, that thousand-year rule and reign of Christ, that's gonna be the King of Kings, Lord of Lords. It's gonna be awesome. And then he's gonna give us a new heaven and a new earth. We'll be a part of all that if you know Christ as Savior. If you're here today and never trusted Christ, we'd love to sit down with a few minutes and share with you from God's word, how you can know for sure your sins are forgiven and you're headed for heaven. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for loving us. We thank you for this prophecy that was given hundreds of years before Christ actually came into this world. And, We didn't see that the prophet wrote this down and then hope that when the Messiah would come that he'd be able to fulfill all that. No, God directed him to write it because that's just what the Savior was going to be. So Lord, we do pray that each one of us might have come to that point where we've trusted Jesus Christ alone for our salvation. Then too, that we might seek to be conformed into your image, that we might be looking to you to be our counselor, our guide, to provide the direction that we need each and every day of our lives. Help us not to be just trying to do our best all by ourselves, but that we might be looking to you for guidance on a daily basis. We thank you for loving us. We thank you for being there for us. Always on call, ready to go. Help us with whatever needs we have. And we thank you for that, in Jesus' name, amen. I'd like for us to sing a closing hymn, if you would, please. 145, 145, O come, all ye faithful. 145, wind down, just stand where you are, and we'll sing it some more. 145. Normandy, Normandy O praise Him, O praise Him! All right, thanks so much for coming. If you're able to stick around a few minutes to decorate the tree and move this over and put up the little nature scene and everything. So, all right. And did we, how did we do here? Okay, we are let it snow. All right, thanks so much for coming. It was our pleasure. Have a good day. Oh, well, we've got one. All right. All right. And those go on the door out here. Hopefully they don't fall off. You're not tall enough, sorry. OK, that's just OK. There you go. Let's look over here. Okay, that's a good question. I don't know. Yeah, good.