Successful Celebration

The King to all men, the King of Kings, salvation bring, their loving hearts enthroned in Him. His face is Christ the King, His face to bring Him home. King of the earth, we shall worship at you at last. Joy of our desire, oh Lord, for exchange of burdens and times, I will bless thee, whose praise will be loud and loud. My soul makes its boast in the Lord. The humble man will be revealed, the afflicted will be glad, and join with me to magnify the Lord. Let us exalt His name together forever. I sought the Lord, He heard me, and delivered me from my fear. Let us exalt His name together forever. Oh, sing His praises, magnify the Lord. The angel of the Lord in heaven, we praise Him with our song. Let us exalt His name together forever. I sought the Lord, He heard me, and delivered me from my fear. Let us exalt His name together forever. Oh, sing His praises, magnify the Lord. Let us exalt His name together forever. I sought the Lord, He heard me, and delivered me from my fear. Let us exalt His name together forever. Oh, sing His praises, magnify the Lord. Children of Israel, receive your gifts from wickedness and lies. Do good and turn from evil, seek peace and set on strife. The righteous help and God will be your guide. Let us exalt His name together forever. I sought the Lord, He heard me, and delivered me from my fear. Let us exalt His name together forever. Oh, sing His praises, magnify the Lord. Let us exalt His name together forever. I sought the Lord, He heard me, and delivered me from my fear. Let us exalt His name together forever. Oh, sing His praises, magnify the Lord. Oh, sing His praises, magnify the Lord. Lord, we thank You that eternity forever changed our destiny. Lord, we so rejoice tonight. When we sing, let us exalt His name together forever. Lord, we praise You that those are not idle words, some myth that we've grabbed ahold of in a desperate plea for reality. But Lord God, it's the promise of Scripture from cover to cover, Lord, that we have eternal life. That whosoever will may come to You, Lord, and repent of their sin and turn to You. And our God, our desire is that You would enable us today to live faithful to the call of men and women of eternal life. Lord, our whole quality of life has been changed. And forgive us tonight, Lord, for every compromise of sin. Lord, every capitulation to temptation, Lord, that's found its way into our being. In some way polluting the purity of the light that would shine through us when Jesus is seen. And I pray, Lord, that we would be faithful in the remaining days of this holiday to shine as bright lights, brighter than the twinkling of all the commercialized things. Lord, may our light so shine that those around us would see the light and give glory to our Father. We praise You tonight, Jesus. We ask it in Jesus' name, my Lord, and everyone's. Amen, O God. Amen. Thank God tonight for eternal life. You know, Christmas is just half the story. Without Christmas, you can't have Easter, but without Easter, Christmas isn't totally there. Isn't it great we can celebrate both? And I mean celebrate, and I'm going to talk to you about that right now. Let's turn in our Bibles, please, for just a few minutes tonight. About celebrating. Where did you think you turned to find out about celebrating? Besides Revelation, okay? Psalms? Let's guess. Let's try Deuteronomy. You wouldn't think that, would you? Deuteronomy. We're going to look at chapter 16, I think it is. How many people tonight can remember Christmas as a kid? Now that's tough for some of you tonight. But you can remember what it's like to get up, and you can't wait to go down the steps, right? Maybe this was last year for some of you. I mean, Christmas as a kid when you were locked in. I mean, it was like moving up to it. You just couldn't wait. This unbelievable anticipation. Everything about it was Joy Bells. I mean, it was cookies, and it was gifts, and it was celebrating. It was getting together. It was no school, you know, all those things. Now it's possible that you're one of a couple of groups of Christians that are miserable at Christmastime. One group I call the Bah Humbug group. Those are the spiritualizers who believe that somehow we have fallen into the trap of adopting pagan, ritualistic, cultic practices when it comes to Christmastime. You know the people that will pull you off to the side after church sometime, and they'll take Santa, take his name, right? And then they'll take the letters, and they'll say, do you see what this really means? S-A-T-A-N. That's right. It's the Grinch Who Stole Christmas. And they'll try to convince you that because Santa and Satan have the same letters, that that's, you know, we're all totally deceived. And then there's the people who are here who think it's a great idea, but it's just gotten so overworked in your life and so difficult and so much hassle that you've totally forsaken your childlike attitudes, and you no longer really enjoy Christmastime. Let me give you a couple of comparisons. You see, the childlike attitude is the one that says, I can't wait to see all the lights and decorations every place. Aren't they pretty? The Grinch attitude is they put those decorations up earlier every year. I can't believe they're doing it already. The child thinks, I don't think the big day will ever get here. I just can't wait. The Grinch thinks, I don't think this is ever going to end. It seems to get longer every year. The kids and us think, I love to see all the toys and decorations and trees. The worn-out old grump in us says, this gets more expensive every year. I'm going to go into debt all the way into July now. The kid thinks, I can't believe it's over already. It seems like it just started. Some of us think, thank God it's over. If it lasted one more day, I'd have had a nervous breakdown. Those kind of things are prevalent, and it is not uncommon to find people who just bury themselves under a terrific weight. They get to the grand moment of Christmas Day. It's terribly depressing to them for all the wrong reasons. Their family wonders what's wrong. They're consoling you. No tears, no joy. Well, you know, the Bible tells us in no uncertain terms that we're to celebrate. And in fact, Deuteronomy is the context of the first really strong teaching on the Lord's command to celebrate. Now, if you read carefully through the first chapters of Deuteronomy, guess what else you'd find there? The Ten Commandments. All the specific injunctions as to how to worship. Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind, and spirit. All the things that you say, yes, that's godly. It's godly to worship one God. It's godly to keep the Ten Commandments. It's godly to do all the ceremonial worship things and the stuff to wear. That's all godly. But celebration? And right here, I want you to see Deuteronomy 16.1. Note the imperative form of the verb. It says, observe. The you, the subject, is understood. You observe the month of Abub and celebrate the Passover of the Lord your God. And then it goes on. You see, it's very biblical to celebrate. And right there, the next several verses describe three of the great celebrations of the Israelites. The celebration of the Passover, called the Unleavened Bread, Feast of the Unleavened Bread, the Feast of the Firstfruits, which was for the harvest, and the Feast of the Tabernacles, which celebrated the Lord's faithfulness in getting the people through the wilderness journey. But understand this, dear ones, lest you think that there's some shallow excuse for people to go out and party at their offices. Those who are truly going to celebrate with understanding have to come to this point, that God commands us to celebrate after we understand what it costs to get there. You see, the reason why the Lord takes the time to talk about the Ten Commandments and the sacrificial offering system in Deuteronomy and then says celebrate, is because He wants you to know that it costs dearly to have the privilege to celebrate. And you and I both grieve because we know that millions of people in our country will go out and have bashes and parties and make fools of themselves celebrating something they don't understand at all. Some vague spirit of the season. Some incredible nebulous little thing which soon all the names will be pulled out and it won't matter at all because we're afraid of offending. It's getting out of hand. Did you see the... We have a little overhead. We condensed something that was in the news record, wasn't it? This last Tuesday. Here we are. Here's what's happening. It says, Things to avoid if you don't want to offend the non-religious people. You can't say happy holidays because the word holly comes from holy. So you can't say that. You can't talk about the Christmas tree because that was derived from some early Druids that worshipped that way. Then there was Santa Claus. You can't throw his name in there because he's from Saint Nicholas. You can't certainly have candles and talk about lights because that represents the star of Bethlehem. And you can't certainly give gifts and all that kind of thing because that all came from the wise men. So what can you say? Well, all you can say is have a nice December 25th. It's getting there, folks. It is getting there. In North Park, they just yanked out all the scenes and everything from just anything that was religious. The Chamber of Commerce this year for the first time eliminated all songs with reference to God or Jesus. So we sang, you know, Jingle Bells and White Christmas. Those were the songs. Nothing left in our culture because we don't want to offend anybody at Christmastime. But see, we as believers, we can't let that stop us from what God has revealed. And we need to be able to celebrate with understanding. And we need to be able to successfully celebrate so we're not a basket case by the end of the time. Very quickly, and I purposely didn't allow much time because I don't need it for tonight. Let me give you four little principles right out of Deuteronomy that are marks of a great celebration. Number one, it starts with remembrance. Remember. Deuteronomy 16, 3. The Lord recounts. The reason why we celebrate the Feast of the Unleavened Bread is we're remembering how God delivered us out of Egypt. We're remembering it. Remember how, was it two years ago, we had the Hebrew Christian who came and went through the whole Seder meal with us and described what all the parts meant and all that? Well, Christmas should be that way for us too. We should take the time to sit down with our family and recount the blessings of God because Jesus has come to be with us. If you don't do that with your kids or your loved ones, you're missing a grand opportunity to make some sense about Christmastime. To share with them what it all means. You know, not only is Jesus our best gift and all that, but you know there's so much symbolism we could, that little illustration, there were some good ones. But how about your Christmas tree? How many of you have taken the time to explain to your kids really what a Christmas tree symbolically stands for? It's an evergreen, which stands for what? Everlasting life. It's a tree. It's wooden. What happened on a wooden tree? The cross of Christ. It's covered with little ornaments and there are gifts piled underneath it. Picture of what? Gifts of the Spirit of God that He gives in addition to His Son Jesus. It's got lights around it symbolizing the light of the world. You can do all kinds of things. Just go on down the line. Remember. Remember. Number two. When we celebrate, we need to rejoice. Deuteronomy 16, 11. Verse 11, look at it. And rejoice before the Lord your God at the place that He will choose. It's absolutely contradictory to be miserable at Christmastime if you're a Christian. If you're that burdened, if things are that bad, put the brakes on, get some time away and say, wait a minute here. You see, one of the strongest testimonies you can have in your workplace is to show your joy. Because how many of you have heard people, at least one person say this week, man, I'm really bummed out. I don't have my stuff done. My cards aren't mailed. My president, I'm tired of it all. The crowds, you know, McNightmare Road, all that stuff. How many of you have heard all that, right? Well, if you walk in there and you start saying, oh, this is terrible, you know. Well, that doesn't do anything. That doesn't do anything. And we need to have the wisdom when you walk into the worldly office parties to have a word in season. You know, man, don't walk around and condemn and point fingers at people who don't know what they're doing. But give reason for the joy that's in you, 1 Peter 5, for that hope. Have a reason for it. Be ready to share it. You know, the Bible tells us to rejoice, Philippians 4, 4, rejoice in the Lord always and again I say, it's kind of like Paul was saying, hey, did you hear that the first time? I said rejoice, and I'll say it again, rejoice. Where did he write that from? Anyone remember? He was in prison. I mean, that's worse than McKnight Road. Not the mall, though. It's about the same as the mall. How do you rejoice? Put music on your radios and all of your stereo CD equipment that glorifies God. You know, choose to surround yourself with uplifting music. Remove the stress makers in your life, folks. You can choose at Christmas time to take the things out that produce stress. We have attitudes, ladies, men, things, expectations you put on yourself that absolutely can just twist you up into a big knot at Christmas time. I have to get everything organized. Things have to be where they belong. I have to have this wrapped this way. This is really, if this doesn't happen, the whole thing, no, that's not true. The right attitude would be I'm going to stop organizing just for the sake of being neat and I'm going to sit down and I'm going to enjoy what I already have. I'm not going to let it put me into a pressure cooker. Well, we have all this tradition we've got to keep and I've got to do all these things for all these people and suddenly the traditions are more important than the people. What does that sound like? Well, that's religion and it's lifeless and it brings death to us. Remove them. Take the expectation off yourself. Husbands, tell your wife if she can't get it all done, it's okay. Wives, tell your husband it's okay. If you don't get me anything again this year, it won't matter. Another thing we can do is feast. Alright? Feasting. Deuteronomy 16, 14. Feast. I mean, put it together. The Bible's full of feasting illustrations. Remember the prodigal son? What did the father do when the son returned home? Well, I mean, he killed the fatty calf, he went big time, 100%. Have a real feast. The best there was to offer. Jesus even attended the wedding feast. God is not against feasting. I want everyone just to give a big corporate praise God because you can sit down and really pig out at Christmas time, alright? That's biblical. You know, but... No, it's not biblical to Gordon. I know, I'm going to get someone. It's the same guy that spells Santa. S-A-T-A-N. You know, you don't have to gorge yourself and make a, you know, walk away hurting, but there is something very special about sharing meals at the holiday time. Why was our Christmas banquet such a great experience, folks? Because we're sharing meal. We break bread. It's just a positive thing. Our family was invited on Sunday evening over to another family's home and our kids are friends with their kids and that kind of thing and, you know, it was just a joyful time. We talk about mixing together and sharing and laughing and eating together and it has a great way of just injecting life into the Christmas celebration and I just want to commend that to you. A couple of ideas. You know, if it's a burden to you to cook all these things, and it is for some people, maybe they work and don't have time, maybe connect with three or four families and have a little progressive dinner. Then you can celebrate together, go from house to house. Make it simple, but you can celebrate by feasting together. Finally, the fourth thing. To have a great celebration, you need to learn the wisdom of giving. Verse 17. Look at this. Each of you must bring a gift in proportion to the way the Lord your God has blessed you. No part of a true celebration has been more abused than this. At Christmas time, we all see enormous, senseless, mindless extravagances being thrown out on people. It's just unbelievable the amount of money that you can spend on virtually nothing. Looking for ways to spend things. Perfume. Golf clubs. The first gift you should think about giving is to the Lord. I'm going to say that again. The first gift, and I mean purposely, not your tithe, but the first gift should be the Lord Jesus. You say, I don't have any money. We're out of work. Don't lay on me. Then give something of yourself. Do something unto the Lord of your time, of your creativity. Give the Lord your first gift. Every family should do that. And then give to someone else. One reason why the banquet puts us in the right mode here in our church is we've done something for someone else first. And that's the way it needs to be. Acts 2.44, 4.32 talks about sharing, giving to one another, koinonia. A couple of ideas for you there. Set a limit. Don't put yourself in a position where you just try to outspend and outspend and outspend and don't go over it. Give something that money can't buy. I would say to some people the best thing you can give someone isn't some physical present as much as it would be a promise to spend time with them or some creative little way. There's all kinds of neat little things you can do. Get those little medicine capsules, those empty ones, and put a little promise in there. One a week for 52 weeks. Just tons of little things. But give something to someone else. Give to people who can't pay you back. Jesus says, you'll be rewarded by your Heavenly Father. Make something. If you're like me, I'm not Mr. Craft. I can't put stuff together very well, but pictures, photographs, you can put something together that whatever you feel comfortable with, that means a lot to people. That shows you put the time into it. And every time you give, it's lovely if you write a little something. Just wanted you to know. This meant, you meant so much to me because of it. Those kind of things matter. Alright, well, celebrate. Hey, we all want to have a great Christmas. We all want to do it. But if you keep these things in priority in your life, the celebration won't just be something you're enduring. It'll be something that you're enjoying. And that's what God intended. Remember God in it. Put him first. Rejoice. Rejoice, rejoice. And if you find your joy slipping, get alone with the Lord for a while and get recharged and focus on the reasons of it. Feast together, share meals, and by all means give something of yourself to the Lord first and others. And you'll find what could be another disaster turning into a great experience. And let me say finally in conclusion, a word to people who don't have others that they feel they can celebrate with. You know, one thing about our church, we really make an effort to be a family. And if you're here tonight and you don't have anyone to spend Christmas dinner with, pastors I want you to go if you would right now please and we have those two handouts. I want the green ones from India and the little surveys. If you're right in the back of your survey that you're going to get here in a moment, that you'd like to spend Christmas with someone because you don't, maybe you're a single person or maybe you're new to the area, we have lots of folks, lots of families that would be happy to have you to celebrate together. Let's pray and then the ushers are going to minister to us here in a moment. Join a hand with somebody would you? Lord, we thank you for your word and this strong, clear, not just license Lord but command to celebrate. To celebrate the birth of your son Jesus. To enjoy the fullness of what you've provided. Recognizing that you sacrificed the glories of heaven to be here among us on earth. And fill up what's lacking in each of us Lord as we come to this Christmas time that it might be unto you a great celebration. Unto God. And Lord we'll just enjoy the leftovers, the overflow of it all in Jesus precious name. And everyone say amen and amen. Alright ushers, let's first of all just for those of you who didn't get, we'll pass them both and pass them all out. Yeah just take them. These green flyers with the picture of Abraham Pothen Thank you. Pray about this. We're trying to begin a very special demonstration of support to our missionary in India. This is a long term project. We want to start it on a strong note. If you were going to give to the banquet and you don't know what to do now, you can give to a lot of other things here in the church. This would be one of them. Maybe you want to give to needy families. Maybe you just want to get going in support of Prayer to a Promise. But this is an option for you. Please consider that. Alright number two. This survey. Take the time when we dismiss or right now if you will. I'm praying over the next couple of weeks about teaching in the new year and I'd like to hear what you think you need to hear. So there's some choices there or on the back you can fill out the others and say well pastor I'd like to hear something on this subject or that subject and I'll be happy to pray about that and see what the Lord says. I'd really like to receive these tonight either in the offering box or in the basket or just in the form of an airplane that we send up here to the platform if you'd like. That is not a take home epistle. That is an eat it here. It's not a take out. It's an eat it here. Alright let's do something else first. Put all your papers down. Alright put them down. We're going to receive the offering now for tonight and then we'll conclude and you can stay those of you who have time to do that. I want to honor the kids and the teachers tonight and be done on time. Your special love offering tonight will go to certain families in our church. Single parents unemployed families who need a special love offering at Christmas time. So if you'd like to give freely to that tonight it will be a blessing to a number of families here in our congregation. Let's honor the Lord. Let's pray. Jesus we give now as unto you and know Lord that you've allowed us the stewardship of these gifts to bless others and to brighten their holiday. May we even tonight exercise something of the principle that we saw in the word of giving unto you with a joy in our hearts that others would be blessed. In Jesus name. Amen. One more minute please ushers. Go ahead and prepare your offering tonight church. I want to remind you that right after the service John Trestle is going to have a reception next door Sherry. You can stick around and fellowship with John. I know he'd like to see you and share with you tonight. It will be right after our meeting. Everybody's got their head down in their papers. Alright let's go ahead ushers. Let's gather the offerings tonight please. Time to just look for those other teachings there. You can do that. Fill that out. Well I think we will dismiss tonight on joy to the world. Okay. How can we not leave celebrating? Less than celebrating. For those of you who are going out of town you're going to want to sing this as your last carol before you leave. Let's stand together. Let's sing a few verses of joy to the world. How many of you think you know at least one verse by heart? Turn to someone and tell them the first word of the song. You got it right. Ready? Joy to the world. The Lord is come. Let earth receive her king. Let heaven and earth receive the king. And let nature see. And let nature see. Oh say can you see by the dawn's early light. What so proudly we hailed We'll sing of our dreams, and then there's songs and songs On fields and floods, on shores and valleys We beat the sandy door, we beat the sandy door We beat, we beat, the sandy door Nobody's living somewhere But they're all getting better and better It's coming to an end, it's coming to an end For as the cushion is bound, for as the cushion is bound For as the water of glory flows, flows He rules the world with truth and faith And makes the nations proud The glory of his righteousness And wonders of his love And wonders, wonders of his love We'll see you Christmas Eve, love one another. You're dismissed. Jan would like to see any building construction people. Building construction people, Jan needs you on the stage now. The Lord is singing, Hallelujah, Amen There is joy, joy, joy in the presence of the Lord The Lord is singing, Hallelujah, Amen Dance and celebrate, dance and celebrate Dance with joy before the Lord Dance and celebrate, dance and celebrate Dance with joy before the Lord Okay, before we go any further, this song says dance and celebrate And usually when you dance you can move your feet a little bit and get involved This is your chance tonight to move out into the aisles And give yourself enough room and just let the Lord take over and celebrate before him Let's try it again There is joy, joy, joy in the presence of the Lord The Lord is singing, Hallelujah, Amen There is joy, joy, joy in the presence of the Lord The Lord is singing, Hallelujah, Amen So dance and celebrate, dance and celebrate Dance and celebrate, dance with joy before the Lord Dance and celebrate, dance and celebrate Dance with joy before the Lord There is joy, joy, joy in the presence of the Lord The Lord is singing, Hallelujah, Amen There is joy, joy, joy in the presence of the Lord The Lord is singing, Hallelujah, Amen So dance and celebrate, dance and celebrate Dance and celebrate, dance with joy before the Lord Dance and celebrate, dance and celebrate Dance with joy before the Lord Dance and celebrate, dance and celebrate Dance and celebrate, dance with joy before the Lord Dance and celebrate, dance and celebrate Dance with joy, one more time, dance and celebrate Dance and celebrate, dance and celebrate Dance with joy before the Lord Dance and celebrate, dance and celebrate Dance with joy before the Lord Okay, we're going to get our hands going tonight Can you clap along with this song, He is Alive? I can see above the clouds And I can hear Him call my name alive He is alive He is alive Tell your neighbor He is alive He is alive It has come that I might have life More life than I ever had before He has promised love from high to low Who will raise me the Holy Ghost One more time He is alive He is alive Let's give Him a clap of praise for that Hallelujah! He is alive I hear the sound Can we get our feet going? We've got our hands going Can we get our feet going tonight? I hear the sound of the army of the Lord I hear the sound of the army of the Lord It's the sound of praise It's the sound of war The Lord is marching on Kids, let's get your feet going I hear the sound of the army of the Lord It's the sound of praise It's the sound of war The army of the Lord, the army of the Lord, the army of the Lord, and his party on. I hear the sound of the army of the Lord. I hear the sound of the army of the Lord. It's the sound of praise, it's the sound of war. The army of the Lord, the army of the Lord, the army of the Lord, and his party on. Be bold, be strong, for the Lord your God is with you. Be bold, be strong, for the Lord your God is with you. I am not afraid, I am not dismayed. I walk in faith and victory, come on and walk in faith and victory, for the Lord your God is with you. Be bold, be strong, for the Lord your God is with you. Be bold, be strong, for the Lord your God is with you. I am not afraid, I am not dismayed. I walk in faith and victory, come on and walk in faith and victory, for the Lord your God is with you. I am not afraid, I am not dismayed. I walk in faith and victory, come on and walk in faith and victory, for the Lord your God is with you. You know, I don't know what kind of situations you guys are all going to be heading into this next weekend, but as I was singing that, I was thinking about, there might be some fear about going into situations, and maybe some of your family situations aren't like those that you know here, and maybe you're a little bit dismayed about what you might find when you go in there, but the Lord says, don't be afraid, go in there, I am with you, that He's made you His, and He's watching over you, and He's going to give you words to say, and He's going to send you out as emissaries to whatever situation you're going to find yourself, because He's made you, what, a citizen of His kingdom, and He's going to keep you strong and steadfast, because He's made us His one in His kingdom. We are citizens of the kingdom. So claim it! So claim it! We are citizens of the kingdom of God. We are citizens of the kingdom. Dominion, power, and authority. Over all the works of the enemy. We are citizens of the kingdom of God. Royal priesthood, holy nation. Retrograde, chosen generation. We are citizens of the kingdom of God. Royal priesthood. Royal priesthood, holy nation. Retrograde, chosen generation. We are citizens of. We are citizens of. We are citizens of the kingdom of God. Could you raise your voice and give Him thanks for that? Just give Him thanks for that. Amen. Majesty. Worship His majesty. Let us worship Him with all things exalted. Jesus. We are glory, power, and praise. Majesty. Kingdom of glory. From His throne unto His throne. His elders raised. So exalted. Therefore I in the name of Jesus. Let His heart come forth with light. Worship His majesty. Majesty. Worship His majesty. Jesus who died now mortified. King of all kings. Majesty. Worship His majesty. Unto Jesus. We are glory, power, and praise. Majesty. Kingdom of glory. From His throne unto His throne. His elders raised. So exalted. Therefore I in the name of Jesus. Let Him come. The glorified. Christ Jesus of peace. Majesty. Worship His majesty. Jesus who died now mortified. King of all kings. Jesus who died now mortified. King of all kings. Prince of peace. Counselor. Mercyful. Son of God. Explore. You are high above the earth. But creation shouts your birth. I explore you. Lord I explore you. I explore you. Lord of peace. Son of God. Explore. Lord I explore you. You are high above the earth. I explore you. Lord I explore you. Lord Jehovah. I explore you. I explore you. Lord I explore you. You are high above the earth. But creation shouts your birth. I explore you. Lord I explore you. Lord Jehovah. I explore you. Five people to come up right now immediately. Who want to give God praise in accordance with one of these names we're singing about. Something that God's shown himself to you. As your counselor. As your prince of peace. As your mighty God. Five people come up right now. Just leave your seat and come up and take this microphone and exalt God. Something he's shown himself strong on your behalf. He's demonstrated his power in your life. I know 50 of you could do it. But just give me five right now. Come on up. Lead the way here. Let's exalt the names of the Lord together. Let's continue and pray. His name is Jehovah Shalom. And that's peace. He's the prince of peace. And when he comes into your heart. Every concern and every worry flees at the sound of his name. Thank you Lord. My peace. Thank you. I just want to say how wonderful the Lord is. We had some problems in our family. With an aunt and uncle who were not going to get together for the holidays. And in faith I prayed and went to see them. And asked them if they would come. And for a week they hadn't called. And so I was beginning to wonder if they were going to come or not. But the Lord was faithful. And he is wonderful because they called. And now we're going to all be together for Christmas. It's a wonderful God. Amen. I didn't know I had to do this. And you know what? I'm up here and that's good enough for now. Isn't it? Please. He's your prince of peace. Yes. Amen. Bless you. Okay. Thank you. Prince of peace. I just have to praise the Lord because God healed me. And I had surgery and everything went fine. And I had so much fear. And everybody prayed for me. And I just praise God that I have a body of Christ that will support me when I'm weak. And I can't handle it. Thank you, Jesus. He's our mighty G