MK040 Sermons
The Gift of Presence (Audio)
It's very significant for me as time spent with my grandparents. My dad's parents and my mom's parents both lived about 45 minutes away, so they weren't able to be there with us at all the things that happened in our lives, but they were there with us at significant events in our lives, and so it was very meaningful to us to be a part of that time with them, and I have great memories of time with both of them. As I was thinking about them this past week, I thought, you know, I can't quite remember too many gifts that they purchased for me for Christmas. I can't remember a lot of those gifts, but I do remember a lot of the time of being with them. I remember I always look forward to being with them. It was always a highlight for me, something that was significant and meaningful. I never dreaded being with them, and I thought to myself, why is that? Why didn't I always look forward to being with them? I think one of the reasons that I always look forward to being with them is because they had a personal interest in me. They always seemed to be concerned about what was happening in my life, what was going on in school, and what I was studying, or what the new job opportunities were that were coming my way. Was there any relationships that were happening, and what was happening with those events in my life? They seemed to be concerned a little bit later as I moved forward into college, and future opportunities there, and as Christine and I started dating, and then we got married and had children, great-grandchildren for them, they were always interested in them. That was obviously a highlight for them. But as I thought about that more and more, I thought they were just interested in me. They were just interested in me. It wasn't that they gave me my way when I was there with them, or that they gave me to eat whatever I wanted, actually there were things that I didn't like that they offered me. I could say no, and I didn't have to eat them. That was actually really kind of nice. But there was just something significant about being with them. I realized that I felt valued, I felt accepted for who I was right at that moment in time, and that's what made that relationship so significant. I want to talk about this morning a different kind of gift, one that maybe you haven't thought about a whole lot. It's the gift of presence, not these, but you, being present with someone else. Are there people in your life that are like that relationship I described with my grandparents? Are there people in your life that you enjoy spending time with, and it seems like the time with them just goes by quickly and you're like, "Oh, it's time already, and time has ended," and you're disappointed that the time has ended and can't be extended. Maybe you've had an opportunity to go on vacation with them, and it was a blast. Maybe they've been with you when life really was bad and hard, and they've been with you to celebrate some good times in life as well. If you have relationships in this life, like that, I hope you know how blessed you are. But I was thinking about that, I thought, "What is it about the human soul, the human heart that just so longs for that, that just so longs for that? I don't think I'm the only one that enjoys being with people who seem to enjoy me just the way I am." But I've discovered that that is often the exception and not the norm in most of our life experiences. I recall when I was in college and I met this guy and we became great friends, and one of the things that was true about my interaction with him is he was very, very good at being curious about me and about my life, and as our friendship continued, and I would spend time with him after Christina, I were married, I would come back and she'd say, "So, what did you learn about Steve and about his life?" And I was like, "Uh, I didn't really learn anything." She's like, "Why not?" I was like, "Oh, I talked a whole time," and he just listened to me, and he was curious, and he cared about me. And oddly enough, it was one of the first times in my life that I just had the sense that someone was that interested in me. And as I thought more and more about that, I realized that there's something deep within us that longs to be cared about, and longs to be valued, and longs to be treasured in that way. If you haven't been here with us this month of December, we've been talking about various gifts, gifts that we have to offer to other people. We talked about the gift of generosity, and Tim talked about that a few weeks ago, about giving two needs when they are there. We're going to have an opportunity that Jeremy is going to talk about later to take an offering at our Christmas Eve service. We take a benevolent offering, and that offering is strictly to meet the needs of our church community and those outside our community. I talked a few weeks ago about the gift of words, and about weighing your words because your words have weight, and offering the gift of your words to others in your life this year. Talked last week about the gift of grace, the gift of grace. What does it look like for you to offer something to someone that they haven't done anything to earn or deserve? They may have not done something harmful to you or missed to mistreat you, but they haven't really done anything to deserve you giving them a gift of grace, something that's undeserved or unsought after. This morning we want to talk about the gift of presence, about you being present with other people, you being present with other people. Someone when they came in this morning and they opened up their program found a gift card in that. If you didn't look in your program, maybe you should, but who has that gift card? You hold it up. Who has that gift card? Somebody's got it in here. Everybody look in your program. Who's got the gift card? I'm going to have to have Caleb tell me who he gave it to. Oh, there it is. Oh, she's got it right there. Hold it up right there. Do you have it right there? No. She's all the false alarms. Somebody's got it. Oh, back there. Way back in the back. All the way back in the back. All right. That gift card is not for you just to spend on yourself. You have to invite someone to go with you. Let's see. Where's it to? Applebee's. All right. You have to invite someone to go with you and you have to spend time with them, even if they hate being with you. You have to spend time with them. All right. That's the point of that. That's the point of it. But the truth is all of us really long for that, don't we and long for it. And I have to honestly tell you as we talk about this this morning that this subject is one that I find myself just not really understanding. I know what it's like when I experience it and I know what it's like theologically and we're going to look at that from what God says about it. But how do I get from here to there? How do I get from here to there? Because I'll tell you what I often find happening in my own life and in my experiences with others is that when I spend time with other people, I find myself talking about myself, talking about my accomplishments or the things that I've done or who I am. And I think why is that true about me? I think it's true about me because I want to have someone just care about my heart and my soul. And I think that's true about all of us. So if that's true about us and we're made in the image of God, what does that say about God? Because God desires something more in a relationship from us than someone who just takes and doesn't give. You have any relationships like that? The people in those relationships they just take and take and take and take and take and take and take and take and take and take and take, you know, you know what that's like? You get on the phone with them, yeah, uh-huh, uh-huh, yeah, uh-huh. Anything else? You know, man, that was exhausting, that was exhausting. If my heart is mirrored after God's heart, and God is a God who longs for relationship, and yet part of his reflection of that relationship is to be able to offer something unconditionally to others, what does it take for my heart to get to that place? For me to be at a place where I can offer not just something I can buy and wrap up and say, "Here, hope you like it," but I can offer myself to other people. Now, some of you, I know what you're thinking as you think, as I suggest this, some of you are thinking, "I don't know why anybody would want to be with me," you know? I'm kind of a mess, you know? I got all these problems and struggles and junk and, you know, who would want to hear about all that? And who really would want to be with me? You might not say that, but you just keep everybody at arm's length like this because you're not sure of your own sense of value and your own sense of worth. But if the God of the heavens made you in his image and he loved you enough to give his one and only son to die on the cross for you so that you could have a relationship with him not only in this life but forever, is it possible that you have amazing worth not only to him but to other people? And that the gift you have to offer is the gift of yourself, yourself. You know, sometimes when we think about this whole idea of the gift of presence of God being with us, we think about it, "Well, God's kind of with me when I'm in trouble." And that's true. We're going to look at a passage of Scripture that helps us remind ourselves of that. But I wonder what would it be like for God to be present with me, not just when I was in a pinch and I was like, "Please, God, do something, bail me out now. I'm really kind of stuck." But for God to be with me in the morning when I had to work or school or when I'm at home with my kids. And God to be with me when I'm faced with that challenging class or with that classmate or with this coworker or with my siblings or God to be with me when I'm struggling in my relationship, my spouse or God to be with me when my spouse is, "I don't want a relationship with you or God to be with me when I wish my parents would find a way to get along. For God to be with me when I'm sitting down paying my bills and I have enough to cover everything." Why would it be like to have this sense of God being with us all the time, all the time? What if God has more to offer to us than we've considered before? And if understanding that and experiencing that and living in that then gives me and gives you the capacity of offering something to other people that touches their soul, that makes them feel deeply loved and valued. That might be a pretty remarkable gift to offer to someone this Christmas season. So where does this idea of presence come from? Where does it come from? Well, to the Jewish people, God was a God to be feared. They knew about the God who created the heavens, they knew the stories about that, they knew about the story of the God who had parted the red seas, about the God who had spoken and given them commands to live by, about the God who sent down fire from heaven to wipe out the prophets of Baal. They knew about this all-powerful God, kind of an oss-like God, but God wanted to offer them something more, something more about himself. If you have a Bible, if you had turned to the book of Isaiah, chapter 6 is where we're going to start this morning, Isaiah 6. And if you don't have a Bible, our guys have some of those and they'll pass those out and make them available to you, Isaiah 6 is where we're going to start and as you're trying to locate that, let me just kind of tell you what's going on in the life of Isaiah. Isaiah was a prophet. He was someone who was a spokesperson for God. And when a spokesperson for God, they didn't have the Bible at that time and so God would speak and to the prophet and this prophet would speak to the people. The problem was a prophet usually didn't get good news, a prophet usually got bad news, a prophet usually got news that you have violated God's word, God's truth, there's judgment that's going to come and that's what the prophet would often say. And so Isaiah was a prophet and he was a prophet in the land of Judah, which is the southern kingdom. The land of Israel was split into two kingdoms, the northern kingdom Israel and the southern kingdom Judah. And Isaiah was a prophet to the southern kingdom. And so in Isaiah chapter 6, Isaiah is in the temple, he's in a place of worship. That's where the Jews would go twice a day to the place of worship to pray. And he's in the temple. He meets God in a way that he never met God before. Look what it says in Isaiah chapter 6, verse 1, it says, "In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord high and exalted, even on the throne, the train of his robe filled the temple." And he goes on to describe angels and he goes on to describe the sounds that shook the foundations of the temple and smoke filling the temple. And God gave Isaiah in that moment a glimpse of God himself, a glimpse of the presence of God. And he goes on in the next couple of verses and he says, "God, I'm not even worthy to be in your presence." And God says, "Isaiah, I have something for you, a task for you to go and do." And Isaiah says, "Here am I, send me, where do you want me to go? What do you want me to do?" I have some bad news. I need you basically to tell the people of Israel that they're going to get wiped out. They're going to be taken into captivity because of their sinfulness. And that's the message that you have to give to them. Well, very shortly after that, chapter 7 in the book of Isaiah, the story kind of changes a little bit because instead of a prophecy, which is what much of the book of Isaiah is about, we get a story. And I love stories. Everybody loves a good story. So in this story, the story is about the king of the land of Judah. His name is Ahaz. And he's being attacked by the king of the north who teamed up with the king of Aram. And so these two kings had joined forces and they attacked Judah. And you can read the historical documentation, 2 Chronicles 20. They had attacked Judah and the one king had wiped out 200,000 of the people and the other king had wiped out over 100,000 people. And look what it says in the end of verse 2. It says, "The house of David was told, 'Aram has allied with Ephraim.' The house of David was the nation of Judah. So their hearts of Ahaz and his people were shaken as the trees of the forest are shaken by the wind. They were scared to death. Think about the fear that has passed through your mind as you became aware of the events in our world over the last month from Paris to San Bernardino. And you've wondered about any public gathering you might be in where there might be a threat. I think probably all of us have had thoughts about that to some degree or another. But imagine what it would feel like if 300,000 people in our country were wiped out by foreign nations. The fear gripped their heart. And they were scared. They were wondering, 'Am I next?' Literally. And so that's the scene, that's the scenario that's taking place when Isaiah is given this prophecy in verse 3 from God. The Lord said to Isaiah, 'Go out, you and your son, Shira, Joshua, to meet Ahaz at the end of the aqueduct, of the upper pole on the road to the launderer's field. Say to him, 'Be careful, calm and don't be afraid.' Don't lose heart because of these two smoldering stubs of firewood, because of the fierce anger of resonant arum, the son of Romaleo. Basically the prophet says, 'I want you to take your son.' He said, 'Why did you tell him to take his son? Well, the son's name means there's going to be a remnant, there's some people that are going to be left.' And he said, 'By the way, those two kings that are attacking you, they're like sticks at the end of the fire that are in a fire that have been pulled out of the fire. They're smoking. I mean, they could do some harm, they could do some damage, but they're going to be gone in a short period of time. Verse 6, 'Let us invade Judah, let's tear it apart and divide among ourselves and make that the son of to be all king over it.' That's what these four nations have said, 'We're going to tear it apart, we're going to destroy it.' But this is what the Sovereign Lord says, 'It's not going to take place, it will not happen. For the head of Aram is Damascus, the head of Damascus is only resin, within sixty-five years Ephraim will be shattered to be a people, the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is only Romaleo's son. If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand firm at all.' He basically says, 'In a very short period of time, these two threatening powers that are trying to take over your country and wipe you out, they're going to be gone.' And you have to decide if you're going to stand firm when this occurs. God then spoke to the king in verse 10, likely through the prophet, and he says, 'Ask the Lord for a sign, whether in the deepest death or in the highest heights.' I think God knew that the king would not be sure if this is going to happen. How do I know if this is going to happen? How do I know you're going to do what you said? Can you give me any guarantee? Can you give me any proof? And God says to him, 'Ask me for a sign to prove to you, to guarantee that I am going to do what I said I'm going to do.' King A. has says, 'No, no, no, no, no, I couldn't ask God to do that, couldn't ask God to do that.' Initial thought is, 'Well, that's probably a good thing. Should you do that? Should you try to force God's hand?' In this case, God invited it. God said, 'Please do this.' And He said, 'I'm not going to do it.' And look what God goes on to say in the next verse. He said, 'Here now, you house of David, it is not, is it not enough to try the patience of humans? Will you try the patience of God also?' God said, 'A has. I promise to do this.' Don't you trust me? Don't you trust me? And then God said, 'I want to give you a sign.' And verse 14, and He says this, 'The Lord will give you a sign, a virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel,' which means God with us.' He said, 'I know that verse somewhere, I've heard that verse somewhere, I've read that verse somewhere, it's part of the Christmas story.' But before it was ever part of the Christmas story, it was a part of a story about people who were afraid, about people who were scared, about people who were uncertain of what the future was going to be, and about people who needed an assurance that God was with them. And so the prophet said, 'A woman's going to have a child, and they're going to name Him Immanuel.' And if you would take the time to read in the rest of chapter 7, in the beginning of chapter 8, you would find that actually happened not only right in that moment in time, but also later when a virgin named Mary gave birth to a child, and his name was called Jesus. And so the prophecy of Israel would provide comfort to them in a time of uncertainty. But what about for the people of Israel much later? When Jesus showed up on the scene, when He was born, Herod was the ruler. Herod was a ruler who feared for his throne. He thought there was someone behind every bush, under every rock, trying to take his throne from him. That's why when the wise men came looking for the young king, and they said, 'Where is this one born king of the Jews?' That Herod said, 'I have to wipe out any potential king.' So kill all the young, all the baby boys under the age of two, and Jesus fled to Egypt with his parents, and he was saved because of that. And so Jesus was born into a time in which there was a certain level of certainty. There was calm, and there was peace, because the Romans were in power. But there was also an uncertainty about what this king would do. And at that same time, in Matthew 1, 23, it said this, it said, 'A virgin will conceive and give birth to a child, and they will call his name Immanuel, which means God with us.' So what does God with us mean? What does it mean? Well in Revelation 3, verse 20, God says this, He says, 'I stand at the door and knock. He says, 'If anyone hears my voice and will open the door, I will come in and eat with Him, and he with me.' I think I wouldn't open my door to a stranger, would I? Maybe if they seemed in great need. But I'd open my door to someone I wanted to have a relationship with, someone I knew. And what Jesus' presence reveals to us, what God coming to this earth reveals to us is that God was not content just to stay up in heaven and give us dictates for us to live our lives. He said, 'I'm going to come down to this earth, and I want to be with you, because I want a relationship with you. You can't have a relationship with someone unless you spend time together, can you?' And God said, 'I'm going to spend part of my existence, I'm going to have my son come to this earth, and be with you.' In John 1.14 it says this, it says, 'The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us.' How many of you are going to travel this Christmas season to be at a family or friends home for a meal? Let me see your hand. How many are you going to travel somewhere? How many of you are going to travel somewhere and stay overnight with a relative? These are the crazy ones. Look, there's only a few of them with hands up, these are the loony ones. I'm with them. This is traveling overnight and staying, that's what the dwelling is. It's not coming for a meal and just showing up and then disappearing, it's not God being there when you're in a crunch, when you're in a pinch and you're like, 'Help me God, I really need you now.' It's God showing up and being engaged and involved in your life and having a relationship with you. That's what God offers to us, that's what the whole idea of God with us is all about. I wonder if we've sold ourselves short by saying, 'What God offers is He offers, sending His Son to this earth and dying on the cross for our sins and paying for our sins so we can have a relationship with God forever.' That's an amazing thing, but what about the rest of my life? Is it just the promise that things will be great when I die and that's good and I'm glad that I have that, but what about here and now? Is it possible that God being with us is God inviting us into a relationship with Him through every part of our lives all throughout the day as long as we live this life on this earth? And what would that be like? Well, what would that be like? To know that God was with me, no matter what came my way, to know that God loved me and valued me and treasured me in spite of me, regardless of me. You know what that being like? You see, God didn't come down and say, 'I'd like to just have a meal with you and I'll give you this gift certificate that'll get you something great in the future.' God says, 'I want to come have a relationship with you. I want to come and be with you.' People says that when Jesus left this earth that He left His Spirit, some translations call Him the comforter, the one who comes right alongside of you. God says, 'I don't want you to be on your own. I want you to know that I am always with you and that I will never leave you and never forsake you.' I was talking with someone recently and they said that they told that to another person and I said, 'Ugh, can you really promise that?' Fortunately, I can't. As much as I would like to do that, even to the people I love dearly, I can't. But someone can and that someone is God. And He offers that to us. In John 15, Jesus said this, He said, 'I'm the vine, you are the branches. If you remain in me and me and you, you'll bear much fruit.' We keep circling back to this verse over and over and over again, trying to understand what does it mean for me to be in Christ and for Christ to be in me, for me to be connected to this vine in such a way that my life and the way I live life is beneficial to many, many, many people. Not just because you can wrap things up beautifully, but because you're willing to be with them through everything that they go through in life. You know, one of the things that athletes know is that you do a lot of preparation before you ever get to the game. You practice, you train, you eat right, you practice some more, you train, you eat right, and then there's the game. Students know that about school, right? You study, you review, you study, you review, to go to study groups, you do review questions, you take a practice test, and then you do what? You take the test. And if you take a step back and think about, there's a lot of things in life that require a lot of effort, a lot of preparation before, what's going to take place? No, moment of confession. How many of you in this room don't have anything left to do for the holidays between now and Friday? Let me see your hands. Okay, man, you aren't allowed to put your hands up. Okay, we got a few honest ladies here, so. Think about the amount of work and effort and preparation that all of us have put in for Friday. I wonder if being with people requires something in much the same way. I wonder if being present with people requires me to do something in my life so that can really happen. Because if I spend time with someone and it's all about me and it's all about me trying to take from them, there's something empty in my soul that has not been filled up that I don't have anything to offer. And if God's offering to be with me and to be present with me, maybe there's a connection to me being with him that enables me to be able to be with other people. You say, "But John, I kind of do my devotional thing in the morning and I read something and I try to talk to God." But my observation in my own life and in my conversations with many people is that simply requires me sitting and reading a few verses and then say, "God, this is important to me and I really need this and I could really use this and be great if you did this and I sure hope you help in here and thanks for doing this." And wow, that sounds like someone who's a taker doesn't it? Just taking, taking, taking, taking. And if God is, if I'm in the image of God and if I long for relationship and God's made me just like him, does God say to us, "I want a relationship where there's more than just taking where you recognize who I am and what I've done and you're willing to sit quietly and be with me and listen to me and then maybe I'll have something to offer to other people." My wife would often say to me, "You're going to have to trust me when I tell you the kids need something from you." I said, "What do you mean by that?" She's like, "Well, you don't have a great gauge in terms of their emotional needs." Okay, yes dear, I'll try to listen on that one. And so sometimes she would say this, one of my kids needs a little bit of this and sometimes this and I would go and try to be with and pour into because if I didn't spend time with them and pour into them, there would be this outcome that would not be good for any of us in the family. And so I wonder if that's true of us. Is it true of us in relationship with others that if we are not sitting with God and being with Him and allowing Him to pour something into us, then we don't have anything to pour out and offer to other people. I like to be with people and I enjoy being with people and if I don't have God pouring into me, then it's almost like I'm offering them a cookie. And I'm sure all of you are eating cookies right now, or at least most of you are. They're just like everywhere in my house, they're in the fridge and they're on the counter and they're in the containers, they're like everywhere. And what does a cookie do? A cookie tastes good in the moment, you need a glass of milk after you eat that cookie. But does the cookie really do anything beneficial to you other than that moment that you taste it in your mouth? Absolutely not. But what if I had a great meal for you and you sat down and you enjoyed that and you savored that and that filled you up and it gave you strength and energy and what you needed to whatever was in front of you. And I wonder if we're not slowing down and we're not pausing and we're not being with God in such a way that we are filled up, what are we offering to each other? A cookie that tastes good for a moment or a meal that will satisfy for a long, long time. I don't know about you, but my schedule has been a little busier than I like it to be. And I don't find myself slowing down in ways that I wish that I would. And so this morning I want to lead you through an exercise just for you to slow down and for you to just be with God. You're sitting in comfortable chairs. I'm not. And if you're sitting in those comfortable chairs and you need to doze off, I'll assume that's what God needs for you to have this morning. But I want us to walk through a brief exercise to just slow down and be quiet and be present with God. So to get us started, I want you to, for two minutes, and I'll tell you up here, I want you to sit quietly and think about what's going on inside you right now. How you feeling physically, feeling rundown, a little weary, feeling pretty good, energetic this morning. How you feeling relationally, the relationships, where are things out of the relationships in your life, spouse, friend, parent, sibling, co-worker. How are things with you and God these days? What's going on there? What are you feeling inside, settled, peace, joy, delight, turmoil, anxiety. So as you sit for the next two minutes and reflect on where you are. You are. You are. You are. You are, you are, you are, you are, you are, you are, you are, you are, you are, you your your, you are, you are, you are, you are, you are, you are, you are, you are, you are, you are, you are. You are, you are, you are, you are. You, you are, you are, you are. One writer said this, he said, you know God by knowing yourself and part of that begins just being honest and being aware with what's happening in you right now. I want to invite you to take a few minutes and the next thing we're going to do is read through a part of the Christmas story. If you have your Bibles, turn with me to Matthew 1, Matthew chapter 1. If you don't have a Bible with you, these verses will come up on the screen, the pages on the screen for the Bibles that the guy's handed out, Matthew chapter 1. And I want you to read through verses 20 through 23, and I want you to read through these three times. And as you read through this verse three different times, I want you to just ask God to identify or point you to a word or a phrase that he has for you today, a word or a phrase, okay? Matthew chapter 1, they'll scroll down on the screen three different times for you to read through. So let's begin and do that. [ Pause ] [ Pause ] [ Pause ] [ Pause ] So God desires to have a relationship with you. I kind of assumed that maybe God has something different for each one of us this morning as we look through that passage of Scripture. If we sat down and I had a conversation like, say I had a conversation with Brian, I probably talked to Brian about the things that were going on in Brian's life, you know? Brian Amy about his job and, you know, his kids and everything that's going on. I wouldn't talk to Frank about the things that were going on in Brian's life, I talked to Frank about the things that were going on in Frank's life. So if God desires to have a relationship with you and with me, I think maybe God has something different for each of us in this passage this morning. So I want you to ask this question for the next two minutes and say, "God, why did you give me this verse or this word or this phrase? Why did God give you that specific word or phrase this morning? I'd like you to take about two minutes, just sit quietly, and ask God that question." [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] For some of you, I think God might have said, "I think you need this word of encouragement." For some of you, God might have said, "I think you need this word of challenge." For some of you, God might have said, "I think you need this word of hope." I don't know why God offered that to you this morning. But the last thing I want you to do is I want you to spend two more minutes and just say, "God, what do you want me to do with this word or phrase?" It gave it to me for a reason. You pointed it out, you've drawn my thoughts and my mind to that. "What do you want me to do with this word or this phrase?" So let's just sit for two more minutes as we wrap up and ask God, what does He want us to do with it? [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] [silence] So what was it like for you this morning to just pause and be with God? That's why He came. Emmanuel is God with us. The Bible says that if you have a relationship with God, that His Spirit is inside of you, that Spirit longs to connect with your Spirit and confirm in you that you are the sons and daughters of God, and to give you hope and to give you peace and to give you joy. And when we spend time with God who is here with us, that God who invites us into this relationship, when we are with Him, then it gives us the capacity to be filled up, to offer something to other people. That doesn't just taste good on their tongue for a moment, but that just might minister to their soul. I don't know about you, but I find it very humbling to think that God wants to use me in that way. [silence] That God would use you, and He would use me. To be His hands, and to be His feet, to enter the lives of people. Sometimes to point them to Jesus, and sometimes to love them, like Jesus. And that's really what the message of Christmas is all about. It's all about us remembering what God has done for us, and what He invites us into, and what He offers to us. And that when we receive that, when we invite that into our lives, then we have something to pour out, and to offer it to others. And we're just filled with joy, and filled with a song that we have to share. So what's it going to take for you the next few days? Even this Christmas season, for you to slow down, for you to stop, for you to pause, for you to be with God so that you can be with other people. Amy and Linda are going to close.