Active Waiting.

Today, if you have your Bibles, you can turn and open them to Isaiah chapter 40. We're going to have a lot of scripture today. Okay, so we're going to be reading in Isaiah chapter 40 today as we continue in our Advent series, talking about what does it look like to prepare the way for Jesus to come, to look, to long, to wait.

When I think about Advent, I think about two different types of people. When someone says they're on their way to your house, there's those of us who have to get ready and those of us that just stay ready. Who's in the stay ready camp? Most of us are probably somewhere in the middle. We all have that last little dish we need to get out of the sink, a few things to prepare to get ready. But in general, when you know someone's coming, you're going to prepare well.

We light the candles. We clean the house. We sweep the floors. We do the things to get ready. Advent is the season for us to get ready, to make room for Jesus to come. Who wants more of Jesus in their life today? We need more of Jesus. I need more of Jesus in my life, the power of his Holy Spirit working through me, cleansing me, healing me, setting me free.

It's this preparing. It's this expecting. This making room. We go back to the corners of our house, the places that maybe we ignored, and all of a sudden you're like, I'm going to dust that. The other day I was vacuuming up the cobwebs in the corner of my basement. Things that you miss because I knew someone's coming to my basement. I had to clear it out. I had to get even the cobwebs that were left in the corners.

Here's the thing. We don't do these things when we're cleaning our house, when we're getting ready, simply to just impress people. We do it so that people feel welcome, like they belong. This morning, who was the first one here today? Probably Josh Bradley. Give it up for Josh. He's like one of the first ones. Josh came in and he turned on the lights for us today. Someone made sure that the coffee was ready. That was Nathan? Who did coffee? It was Cole that did the coffee. Someone made us that coffee today, not just to impress us even though I think our coffee is kind of impressive, it's pretty good. We do decent with the coffee. But it's to make us feel like we're welcome, to make us feel like we belong.

When it comes to now not only us receiving Christ, we now also have an invitation to prepare the way for other people to come and experience Christ. We're not just out here to impress people with our theology, to impress people with the things that we know about the Bible, but to welcome people, to help them feel like they too belong in a relationship with the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.

So we're going to be reading now, a big chunk of scripture. You guys ready? Some of it will be on the screen. Some of it, you'll need a Bible. We have Bibles in the back. Sean's back there. He can get you a Bible if you need one. And you can take those home. It's not even stealing. Like we want you to have it. So lots of Bibles.

It says this in Isaiah 40:

Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins. A voice of one calling in the wilderness, prepare the way for the Lord. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low. The rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain, and the glory of the Lord will be revealed. And all the people will see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. A voice says, cry out, and I said, what shall I cry? All people are like grass, and all their faithfulness is like flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the Lord blows on them. Surely the people are grass. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever. You who bring good news to Zion, go up on a mountain. You who bring good news to Jerusalem, lift up your voice with a shout. Lift it up, do not be afraid. Say to the towns of Judah, here is your God. See, the sovereign Lord comes with power and he rules with a mighty arm. See, his reward is with him and his recompense accompanies him. He tends to his flock like a shepherd. He gathers the lamb in his arms and he carries them close to his heart. He gently leads those that have young.

Isaiah 40:1-11

Let's pray today. Heavenly Father, we thank you today for your word that is alive, that your word is active. God, we thank you for the presence of your Holy Spirit that is in this room, that is speaking to us through this text, through each other. God, I just pray that right now in this moment, and I invite you as I pray to pray in your own way, to just say, Lord, remove any distractions from my heart right now. Remove any distractions from my mind. Surrender it to the Lord. Say, Jesus, I'm giving you my attention. I'm listening. I'm open. I want to hear from you, God.

God, that is our desperate prayer today of recognizing, just like the words that we sing, that you are the one that we need. In you, we have everything. We long for more of that, more of your hope, more of your peace. So would you fill us, Holy Spirit, as we listen to your voice through this text today. In Jesus' mighty name we pray. Amen.

Context of Isaiah

So here's what's happening in Isaiah. When we get to the Old Testament and the prophets, there's always a whole lot going on contextually. I'm just going to give us a brief overview.

Up until this point, we see in chapters 1 through 39 of Isaiah, it's kind of like this harsh warning that God is coming to the people. He's giving them this warning, this judgment. He's calling them to this place of repentance. And then we're going to move into chapter 40, where now it's this comfort. It's this restoration. It's this promise of renewal.

So in 1 through 39 in Isaiah, if you're going to sit down and read it, you're reading about before the Babylonian exile. During the time where they were being threatened by the Assyrians. And then you're going to move to this. He's speaking to people now in 40 through 66 who are already in exile. The people are going to lose their land. They're going to lose their temple. They're going to lose their sense of identity. They're going to feel like God has left them and abandoned them, and they don't know where to turn.

And then God is coming in with this message from his prophet Isaiah, who was speaking on God's behalf to the people. I want to highlight a few of these words because we see here that God is coming with comfort. God is coming with comfort, tenderness, gentleness. He says, speak tenderly to Jerusalem and proclaim to her. Comfort, comfort my people. This comfort, this tenderness, this compassion is pointing the way then to who Jesus is and who Jesus came to be.

We think even of Jesus being born and we'll read more of the account later, like in a manger, coming as a baby. Guys, that's a little weird that our king came as a baby. And then we see that his first time declaring his kingship, his lordship, he came in low, riding in on a donkey on Palm Sunday. He came gentle. He came lowly in this way.

In Matthew chapter 9, in the gospel of Matthew, there's these accounts of all these different miracles that Jesus did. It's kind of funny, even as I was reading it this morning, it's just like these casual headers. If you look at it on a page, it's like Jesus heals the blind. Jesus heals the sick. Jesus raises a dead girl to life. You're like, whoa, who's got time for that? That's a lot of work in one day. Anybody else do that in a day? No. Jesus did.

But it says at the end of all this in verse 35:

Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness.

Matthew 9:35

I love that. He had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. He looks to his disciples, the people that are following him. If you are a follower of Jesus, then you are a disciple of Jesus. You're an apprentice of Jesus. You're someone that's in the process of becoming like him and called to do what he does. And he says this to them:

The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his field.

Matthew 9:37-38

Isaiah is proclaiming, like prepare the way of the Lord. Jesus comes, the Lord comes, and he's looking at his disciples. He's looking at us today and saying, now will you pray and will you go and will you be the sent ones that continue to do the miracles, that continue to see the dead raised back to life and those with sickness healed. This is our invitation that we are invited to participate in.

Preparing the way through repentance and active waiting

Here's where it starts. God comes with this comfort. How then do we prepare the way? Through repentance and we participate through active waiting. We prepare the way through repentance.

I was going to ask if I have permission to challenge you all today, but you did show up here knowing we're going to preach the word. So we're about to get challenged a little bit, okay?

When we look at this text and we look at what's happening here, there is such a call, such an invitation to repent. John the Baptist, when he comes, it talks about that he comes first with a baptism of repentance before Jesus comes with the baptism of fire. I want to talk about that today and why I think it's so important for us to be people as followers of Jesus that welcome the baptism of repentance into not just our lives on Sundays when we gather once a week, but every single day so that we can be people that prepare the way.

We're going to be reading a lot in Matthew, in the gospel of Matthew today as well, a little bit in Luke. So we'll be back and forth from Isaiah, Matthew.

Matthew chapter three says:

In those days, John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near. This is he who has spoken of through the prophet Isaiah, a voice of one calling in the wilderness, prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him. John's clothes were made of camel's hair and he had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locust and wild honey. People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan, confessing their sins. They were baptized by him in the Jordan River. But when he saw many of the Pharisees and the Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them, you brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not think you can say to yourselves, well, we have Abraham as our father. I tell you that out of these stones, God can raise up children for Abraham. The ax is already at the root of the trees and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.

Matthew 3:1-10

I baptize you with the water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am unworthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

His winnowing fork is in his hand and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

Matthew 3:11-12

John the Baptist is fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah when he's coming and he's preparing the way through this baptism of repentance. He's promising that there's one coming who is Jesus, and he came. So Advent, Nathan talked about like last week where it's like we're celebrating and that yes Jesus came and we're looking for him to come again. He's with us now through the power of his Holy Spirit.

The good news is, when we are saying yes and receiving the baptism of repentance and we are removing the stumbling blocks, we're removing any distraction and we're returning our hearts back to the Lord, we do that with the power of the Holy Spirit because it's something that we cannot do on our own. He renews us and he redeems us and he restores every part of us so that we can make the path clear for those coming behind us.

This is the promise that we're looking towards today. This is what we get to live in today. So why the baptism of repentance before the baptism of fire? Now, if you notice today, we had our beautiful decoration team come in and decorate. We didn't just decorate around the old stuff, right. We removed the few plants that were dying. We put the new stuff in. In the same way, when you're taking out the trash, you take it out before you put the new bag in.

Can you imagine if you never took out the trash, but you just said, I'm going to put a clean bag in the trash can over this trash? And then I'm going to come home at the end of the day. Is it going to smell nice in your home? No. The trash is still there. You have to take it out. You have to remove it. You have to get rid of it. You can't keep it. You can put the new over it, but if you're not willing to turn from the old and get rid of it, to throw it away, get that trash out of the house and clean it up, it's still going to smell. It's still going to rot. It's still going to produce the mold and all the things that are going to make you sick. It goes on and on and on.

We have to repent and receive the power of the Holy Spirit. Repentance is turning from the old and turning towards Jesus. We have to clean house. We have to repent and then we encounter the power of the Holy Spirit to do things beyond our human control.

A quick note on this. When we talk about repentance, we have to remember that conviction leads us closer to God, but shame keeps us stuck. The good news is when we throw away the trash, we can be like okay, we're done, and we're not looking back. We're no longer going to identify as like my house is dirty, my house is gross, my house is unclean. We're like no, we cleaned it. It's good. So now I'm going to live clean. I'm going to welcome people to my house knowing it's clean. I'm going to live in this identity as a clean person who took their trash out.

We don't have to live like that anymore. Shame keeps us stuck. That's what the enemy's going to do. What keeps us from repentance is sometimes we're like, well, if I have to acknowledge the dirt, if I have to acknowledge the filth, the things that are in my life that aren't looking like Jesus, then that's my identity. We have to deal with the lies of the enemy coming in over and over again. He's like, remember that? Remember that? Remember that? That's not God. Christ leads us closer. Conviction leads us closer to Christ, but shame keeps us stuck.

We shouldn't run from conviction. If anything, we should run towards it. This is why, as a part of when we talk about our rule of life, our shared practices that we have as a church, one of them is ending the day with examine. A piece of the examine is simply replaying, and this can be five minutes of replaying your day with the Lord and reflecting and saying, God, where were you? Show me where you were today.

And then the repentance piece. We want as a church to practice daily repentance. I'm not just saying like, Lord, forgive me for anything I did wrong, but sitting with the Lord long enough to let him show you like, Lord, was there any way in my life that I was not honoring to you? Was there any ways that my speech was hurtful or harmful or caused somebody else to stumble? Lord, will you show me? Make space for conviction so that you can turn from the old. You can be clean and return towards Christ in a closer, more pure, intimate way.

And then we rejoice and we return our attention to who Jesus is, that he cleansed us, that he healed us, that he restored us so we don't have to sit in the filth and the shame anymore. We can run free of all of that.

Repentance should be something that we're so proud of. My hope for us as a church is that we become people that we're not just like, oh yeah, Lord, okay, forgive me if I did anything. Bye. I'm done. But it's like we're sitting long enough to be like, show me. We're the first to say sorry. We're the first to forgive. We're the first to offer grace. We're the first to even call people higher when we notice things in each other's life.

We're not going to be embarrassed or shamed when someone says like, hey, this hurt me or hey, can we talk about this. But instead we're going to say, okay, Lord, convict me and let me return to Christ. I'm not living in that identity anymore. That becomes a part of our rhythm. The reality is, when you journey together for the long haul, you're going to hurt people. You're going to be hurt by people because we're messy as people.

So the idea that a perfect church is going to be free of us offending each other is just not real. But the point is that we get to come together and we get to be refined as we continue to repent and be renewed and walk towards Christ. So when someone comes to you and is like, hey, I'm sorry this happened, and we offer forgiveness, then we're no longer seeing them as unclean. But then we engage with them as if they're clean, as if they're whole, as if they're restored.

Making straight the paths

John is clearing the ground before Jesus arrives so people can recognize him. Can people recognize Jesus in the way we engage with them? Here's when it talks about this:

Make straight the paths for the Lord. Make straight the paths for the Lord and there's so much in this text of Isaiah. A voice of one calling in the wilderness makes straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low. The rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain, and the glory of the Lord will be revealed and all the people will see it together for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

Isaiah 40:3-5

Let's talk about the level ground here. How many of you know when you're running uphill, you're probably going a little slower? And now that I'm over 30, when I'm running downhill, I'm going a little slower because my knees, my knees. There's something about the ups and the downs and the rugged that it makes it harder to walk. It makes it harder to have a clear straight path to where you need to go.

Now there's some historical stuff that's important for us to recognize. When he's talking to the people here in Israel, this was a thing. This was royal language that he's talking. So this was a thing that would happen when kings, when rulers, when leaders were coming. They would prepare the roads. They truly would level anything that was being raised. They would level it out. They'd fill all the potholes. They'd do a lot of construction, hopefully quicker than what they're doing on John Nolan these past couple weeks. But they would make way for the king to come. They would go out of their way to remove the stone, to flatten the ground.

Preparation requires a bit of excavation. Preparation requires a little bit of heavy lifting. It requires us to participate, to be involved. What does this look like? I don't know if anybody else was told this. I shouldn't say it's a lie because I know it's true, but I had a fear of God in me if there was anything on our floors growing up. It's like, well, what if there's a fire? If the fireman comes in the middle of the night and your Barbies aren't picked up all the way in the corner, they're going to trip and fall and everyone's going to die. It's like this doomsday thing. Just me. Just my household. Great.

Still to this day, like as a grown woman who owns my home, the other day I had a paint can that was like kind of towards the middle of the room and I was like, I better move that in case there's a fire and the fireman comes so he doesn't trip and fall. But there is this idea where it's like, yeah, if there's not a clear path, you're going to trip and you're going to fall and you're not going to be able to get to where you're going.

We have to be intentional to remove the roadblocks in our lives. We have to be people that we're not afraid of the heavy lifting. We know like this is a part of our role. This is our joy that we get to do this so that others can encounter Christ.

Living with active participation

Now, a few things I want to talk about before we close today. And then we're going to get kind of practical. I really just sensed as I was praying through this text today of like, what does this actually look like for us to be people that are going beyond just our prayers to say, like, we want more people to know Jesus, our prayers to say, like, Lord, send the laborers, but to actually get in the game and to start to say like, okay, I'm going to do the heavy lifting and I'm going to clear space every single day so that when I'm talking to people, it's Jesus flowing through.

When I'm offering grace and forgiveness, it's Jesus coming through. Sometimes that can be hard. In my own life, I had a period of time where I had several people that they just told me, they're like, you know, when I first met you, I just thought you were really mean. I was like, what? What?

I don't even remember meeting you or something like that. They're like, yeah, I would just look at you and you just looked mean. They'd say, that's just my face. I just have a mean face. That's it. It's just my face. And then eventually it hit me and I was like, I can keep living and just be like, well, that's just my face. I just naturally am not a smiley person and I can put it on everyone else and be like, they're just interpreting my face wrong.

But there comes a period of time where our intent no longer matters. If what we're doing is causing other people to be farther from Christ, we got to do the heavy lifting and we have to remove some things from our lives. It might be surprising. Hopefully you guys didn't think you were mean when I met you and I'm still working. I'm in process.

But this idea where like I literally sometimes have to go in and be like, smile, smile, look happy. Some of you have probably talked to me for what I call my cool girl pep talk. Like, you got this. You can go be happy. You're the cool girl. Just pretend. Get in the zone. It sounds so silly, but I'm not naturally this outgoing. I don't naturally just go and ask you your name. I don't naturally just smile when I walk in a room. But it's this intentional thing of me saying, okay, I want everyone that comes close to me to see the light of Jesus.

So that means I might have to smile more. I may have to be the first one to introduce myself, even though it's not natural. But to continue to say, what does it look like to participate in preparing the way? It's no longer ignoring the things in our lives that might be keeping people from Jesus. It's saying, I'm willing to do the heavy lifting so that people can encounter the living Christ.

This is what we're after. I wanted to go back to then the genealogy of Jesus that we read about in Matthew chapter one. Fun fact, when I was in high school, I was a teen Bible quizzer. I had to memorize this at one point. Don't ask me. But I did. I used to be able to name all the names at one point in my life. Now I'm like, how did I do that? That was crazy. But that was my high school experience.

So okay, we have the genealogy of Jesus. In Matthew chapter one, if you read it, it starts out a little different than all the other gospels. All the other gospels kind of start out with stories and you're like drawn in and you're like, yes, I want to learn about this. Then you start just reading all these names and half of them you can't pronounce. You're like, what is happening?

But I love this about the genealogy of Jesus. There's people like Abraham listed, who we know was not perfect, who we know did a lot of harmful things, yet God redeemed him, restored his story, and used him to prepare the way for Jesus. We have people like Tamar, who was someone that had an incredibly hard, painful life. So many of these in the beginning, you'll read about in Genesis. The story of Tamar, whose life was taken advantage of. She was abandoned. She was left to fend for herself. And God redeemed her, restored her, and used her to prepare the way for Jesus to come. Rahab, Ruth, David. All of these exiles in Jerusalem and the Israelites that Isaiah is speaking to. The disciples. Each and every one of us today.

He wants to redeem your story. He wants to restore you, renew you, and to have you participate and prepare the way for Christ to come and for his kingdom to be alive here in Madison as it is in heaven.

But what happens when the king arrives? How does the king come? Because all of these people, they were a part of preparing the way. They gave their lives to prepare the way. And then this is what Isaiah continues to say:

Do you know? Have you not heard? Has it not been told to you from the beginning? Have you not understood since the earth was founded? He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy and spreads them out like a tent to live in. He brings rulers to naught and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing. No sooner are they planted, no sooner are they sown, no sooner do they take root in the ground than he blows on them and they wither, and a whirlwind sweeps them away like chaff. To whom will you compare me or who is my equal says the Holy One? Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens. Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one and calls forth each of them by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing. Why do you complain Jacob? Why do you say Israel, my way is hidden from the Lord, my cause is disregarded by my God? Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary and his understanding is unsearchable. He gives strength to the weary and increases power to the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary and young men stumble and fall, but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not be faint.

Isaiah 40:21-31

This is the hope of Jesus. This is how he comes. As someone to lift those that are low. Though what he comes to even the playing field to say you all have access to me and all power and all authority.

In Luke chapter 2 we read one of the most specific accounts of Jesus' birth:

Joseph went up to the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judah in Bethlehem, the town of David, because he belonged to that house. And he's with Mary, and while there, the baby is getting ready to be born. There were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night, and an angel of the Lord appeared to them. And the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior is born. You will find a baby wrapped in clothes and lying in a manger.

Luke 2:4-12

They're waiting for their king. They're longing for their king to come, and he is here.

N.T. Wright has a great way that he describes why this is hard for us to kind of reckon with. He says the reason Jesus wasn't the sort of king people had wanted in his own day is because they had become used to ordinary, shabby, second-rate kings and rulers. They were looking for a builder to construct the home that they thought they wanted. But he was the architect coming to build them a home that they didn't even know they wanted but the one that they needed. They were looking for a singer to come and sing a familiar tune to them. But he came humming a new melody that would take all of those songs and turn them into background music. He's coming as the composer. He's bringing a new song, a new day.

Church, I don't want us to get used to the ordinary. I don't want us to get used to what we think, what we envision as God's kingdom coming. I want us to be people that are walking in repentance, that are working to remove every barrier, every obstacle so that we can come so close to Jesus and the reality of who he is. Not just who we have created him to be or who we think we want him to be. But who we need him to be, which is our king, which is our Lord, which is our ruler.

If he's our king, then that means nothing else has authority over us. So we will willingly lay down every other thing that stands in the way to make way for Jesus. Not just for ourselves, but for the people around us.

Practical application

Our so what for today is this. Advent is not passive waiting. Advent is not passive waiting, but it is active participation in preparing the way for Jesus to come. It's not us sitting back in silence and just looking at these candles and just taking in the sense, but it's us actively participating and doing the heavy lifting so we can clear the path and clear the road for people to come close to Jesus.

So now what do we do with that? I got a lot of things today. First, make straight paths and I'm going to invite the worship team actually to come as we get ready to close today. Because I want you guys to take a moment and I want you to really ask the Holy Spirit, even now, like what do I need to be doing to clear a path? What's standing in the way of me seeing Jesus clearly as king, as ruler, as all authority? What's standing in the way of me helping others do this?

If you have your phones or a notebook or you're taking notes, I want you to take notes. I want you to take a picture of these slides and to really ask the Lord to speak here. It says, make straight paths. Remove distractions, obstacles to seeing Jesus clearly. Let your actions and words match. Practice consistency, honesty, and prayerful rhythms.

I think for some of us today that there is an invitation for us to be people to say, okay, I want my actions to match my words. Right? We talk all the time that like God's a show and tell God. He didn't just say, I love you, but he sent Jesus to be a physical representation of his love. He didn't just say, I'm going to give everything for you. He literally gave everything for us. Where do we need to be people where our actions match our words?

Lift up the valleys. Isaiah says, anything that is low, lift it up. Encourage people. And when I say this, intercede in prayer for those that are struggling. Spend time praying. There's five of these, so you could even do one of these every single day this week. Spend time and say, God, would you show me? Because the Holy Spirit speaks to you when you pray. Would you show me anyone that I need to encourage? Let's not be passive people. Let's be proactive in the way that we partner with God in prayer and intercession.

Lower the mountains. All right, this is personal for us now, okay? Lay down pride, entitlement, anger, and self-centeredness. Be people that apologize quickly and choose humility. Serve rather than just demand and expect that everyone else around you is going to serve you. Be the first to say, even if it's not recognized, even if we don't clap for you like we did for Cole making the coffee and Josh being the first one in here today. That next week, if you're on coffee, please make the coffee for us. But to be people that we're going to serve and we're going to continue to apologize and to choose humility over choosing to try to get our own justice, because that's in the Lord's hand. We're going to lay down our rights to be understood. We're going to lay down our rights for all of those things.

Smooth the rough places. Pursue reconciliation. Repair broken relationships. Be gentle. Gentle. A kind word, a gentle word can go so far in conversation, in conflict. Pray. Where do I need to use gentleness to show like God's a God of comfort? He's a God of peace. He's a God of rest. He's gentle in his approach and the way that he came.

I don't know how many people want to be yelled at or screamed at into doing something. But the gentleness of the Lord and his Holy Spirit is so powerful. So when you're tempted to rise up in anger or harsh words, choose gentleness. Come meek, come humble.

Make the ground level. Remove barriers. Practice hospitality and welcome. Make space for others, recognizing that everyone has a place at the table. These are the ones that can be so hard sometimes because it can be easy, and even part of the reason we'll talk about the big give and we want you to pray and ask God what you can sacrificially financially give. We believe like money is a huge power thing in our lives.

We want our money, the thing that controls most of our lives, to continue to grow in that discipline of giving that to the Lord. We also have opportunities like when we talk about laundry love, where once a month we go to the local laundromat and we just pay for people to do laundry and we build relationships with people. Or we have the stocking stuffer event where it can be a little crazy as we're helping all these kids pick out their presents. We also want to be hospitable and be sacrificial and generous with the very same thing that Jesus is generous with, which is relationship, which is hospitality, which is welcoming and helping people belong. We want to participate in making space for others to encounter Jesus, and that might cost us something relationally. That might mean praying about saying, God, who really needs a friend, and how can I be that for them?

So I want to invite you to stand whenever you're ready today. If you're still taking notes, you can finish. But I just want to invite you to say God, like would you show me anywhere that I need to repent, any ways, anything that's standing in the way that I just need to remove. So I'm just going to invite the Holy Spirit to speak. I'm going to trust him to do that and I'm going to invite you. Sometimes we do this where we just posture our bodies in a posture of surrender by simply just holding our hands out in front of us.

If you're comfortable with that, I just invite you to do that. Just place your hands out in front of you as a sign of just surrender and welcoming the Holy Spirit to speak. I'm going to invite the team to just lead us here in that chorus of that last song that we did, of just declaring, like, God, we know that you are all that we need. When we have that mindset and we realize that Jesus, it's you, it becomes a whole lot easier to repent and to lay everything else down.

So Holy Spirit, would you speak specifically to us today? Show us people that need to be lifted up. Show us ways that we need to be laid a little lower. Show us ways that we need to clear the path, repent, remove, and make way for you, Jesus. So Holy Spirit, would you come and speak?