Well let me ask you to take your Bibles and turn to Matthew chapter 1. we'll start there and I'm going to read a portion of scripture to you from that passage and then we'll draw from a passage from Luke 24. So we're going to this morning look at a passage that we typically would read and consider in the Advent season and then we're going to look at another passage that we would typically look at and consider on Easter Sunday. Right? So we'll bring together those two great times of celebration for the life of the church. We do it under the consideration of this seventh antiphon where the church sang O Emmanuel come, O Emmanuel come. Let me read to you verses 18-23 of Matthew chapter 1. Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows after his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph before they came together she was found with child of the Holy Spirit. Then Joseph her husband being a just man and not wanting to make her a public example was minded to put her away secretly But while he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she will bring forth a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. so all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord to the prophet saying behold the virgin shall be with child and bear a son and they shall call his name Emmanuel which is translated God with us. We have before us the passage in Matthew that we're looking at. I think that it might be likely that coming into the new year you've maybe renewed yourself to pick up your Bible and begin, maybe you fell off at some point in time and renew yourself and you're reading of the Bible on a regular basis. So you picked up the Bible and you didn't know where to start and maybe some of you began in Genesis chapter one. So you read at least a few chapters in the book of Genesis. I'm certain that you read something that you've read before in the past. But I don't know if you've noticed this. when you're reading Genesis chapter 1 and you're reading of the days of creation and God coming and creating all things that the perspective is rather unique the perspective is the perspective and sense of human eyes looking out looking upon but actually looking out from earth out into all the universe and at the center of all the creation is this earth that God is creating and God through the various days of His creation establishing first the light and the dark and the night and then all the stars in the sky and then all the separation of the water from the earth and then the vegetation that grows and you see this progression of creation all centering around this little speck we call earth in the middle of this universal sea of stars and planetary systems right from here we're looking at it all and then it all comes to a garden that God creates and in the garden God creates or makes or places human beings men and women and Genesis chapter 1 verse 27 says that it all kind of concludes in this vantage point and it's as if we're looking at it through human eyes. We have to remember that Moses was the one who wrote this and he was writing it for the people of Israel after they'd come out of bondage in Egypt And Moses is introducing or reintroducing them to the God that's their God. And he's the God who's the creator of all things. And so in a sense, the people of Israel are looking out through the writing of Moses, and they're viewing this creation that's taking place from this earth. And Moses is teaching them and telling them, God through Moses is teaching and telling them that God put them at the center of all his creation. that was all surrounding this one moment in which God made them and created them in His image and that God had a plan for this. God did all this so that they would know Him and experience Him and enter in in a way that no other created being could in a deep, abiding, intimate, personal relationship with Him. And then once God had made all these things and then made them His image, God then created this garden in which they were to experience and enjoy the blessedness of life with Him. And when you think about it that way, it's a rather egotistical view of all the things around us, isn't it? That we would look at all the creation around us and we would stare into the depths of the universe and think at the center of it all is us. It's God's unique, crowning, creative achievement. And at the center of that is us with God, made to be with the God who made all these things in an intimate conversation and relationship with them. Yet as egotistical as that is, the Bible teaches us that it wasn't enough for mankind. It wasn't enough that God had created all things around him, surrounding this intimate relationship they would enjoy with him in a garden that he specifically made for that enjoyment, for that expression of relationship. But then they put their eyes on a different idea. They wanted to be as God themselves. they wanted to in a sense be independent of God they wanted to rise beyond that seemingly egotistical notion to being at the center of all things themselves as God themselves and so they fell into sin and they fell away from God They lost their relationship with them. They would be free from God to do as they wished and as a result of being free from God, these individuals who were created to enjoy the favor of God with them and God in relationship with them, they sinned and they chose a course of self-exaltation. and as a result they realized in a moment that they were apart from God, separated from them. They were driven from the garden, they left the light of God's presence, they went into a world of darkness and difficulty and death and Here is where mankind has been ever since. Every human being that has ever been born has been born outside the garden, born away from that place where we were to be with God, born into a world of sin, infected by our own sins, we remain apart from God. But God has never stopped holding the desire to be with us and us to be with Him. And so the rest of the Bible story is actually an account of all that God has done to bring us back to Himself. The first thing God had to do was he had to save us from sin. It was the consequences of sin and our willfulness that drove us away from him. And so God had to save us from the damage of our sins and the separation that our sins had brought about, separating us from a holy and sinless God. Matthew chapter 1 we have these two names that are given to Joseph that are to be given to the name of the baby that's to be born to Mary and the first name is Jesus. Why? Because Jesus means the Lord saves or Yahweh saves and he's coming to save us from our sins. Why? Because the other name he'll receive is Emmanuel, which is God with us. And in order for us to be with God first, we have to be saved from our sins in order that we may be with God. This is God's design, and this is God's purpose, and this is what he's pursuing, and this is what he's accomplished in Jesus Christ. And this is the message of the gospel, by the way. The message of the gospel is that God has made a way to save us from our sins in order that we may again be with Him. I'll give you a recommendation for a book. I texted my son. He has little children. I know he has a little children's book. I was thinking about this idea of what Emmanuel means and God with us, and I asked if he had a little book for children that might describe this. And so he sent me, in a series of photographs, a book called The Story of God With Us. I don't know if any of you parents have it, but if you don't I recommend that you get it. The story of God with us is beautifully illustrated, but it's this picture of the very thing we're talking about. This wonderful design that God had in order to bring us with him and how at each moment in history which God turned us to be with him man turned away from God and were driven out from the places and the spaces that God had made for us uniquely and wonderfully to be with him but this is God's desire and the end of all creation will be that God eventually brings those he redeems back to a garden That's what the New Jerusalem is, it's a garden in which God will be with us and we will be with God. We read in Revelation chapter 21, let's go back there again and just look at it because it's so encouraging and we'll get here in our message this morning to these things. But in Revelation chapter 21, this picture of this new heaven and its new earth, this New Jerusalem that's come down, here's what we read in verse 3. I heard a great voice from heaven saying behold the tabernacle of God is with men and he will dwell with them and they shall be his people. God himself shall be with them and be their God. It's Emmanuel. God fulfilling the very design and purpose of the name that he gave to our Savior Jesus Christ. Now take your Bibles and go to Luke chapter 24. We give it a little bit of an illustration, by the way. Let's see if I can find a book here. There are different ways to illustrate. the salvation that God has brought to us in Jesus Christ and that you can give when you're sharing the gospel with the individuals around the world. We found that this is the most helpful illustration and the one that crosses over the most cultural boundaries. It's favored by individuals and you've used this illustration. It was an illustration that was given to us by a man named D. James Kennedy from Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church and he had developed a model of evangelism called Evangelism Explosion and we took that idea and we've used it quite effectively when we have conversations with people about the gospel we first begin with talking to them about God and we talk to him about God as the creator who made all things then we talk to him about a God who's made them in his image so that they might know him which is in a sense the grandest thought the most wonderful thought the most elevating thought that we can give to a human being that they were made of God above all things in His image so they could know Him. And we talk about sin and our fallenness and how we've been separated by that sin and have lost that connection, that relationship with God but that God's design has been to bring us to Himself. we get to at some point time an illustration that we call the record book of sin and we simply say just imagine for a moment that this hand is you and that this book represents a list of all the sins that you've ever committed in your life and they're on your life and as a result they separate you from the God who made you and created you in order to have a relationship with you so that you're separated from him and you can't have a relationship with him and God also is a just and holy God and he must punish you because of these sins that are on your life but God loves you and God still wants a relationship with you and he wants to save you from those sins and so God came to earth and became a man Jesus Christ And he lived a perfectly sinless life. Obeyed God's laws perfectly and completely in every way. And then one day he allowed himself to be taken to a cross and there to be nailed on that cross. And upon that cross he took upon himself all the punishment for your sins. suffered and he died for those sins and was buried for three days but his righteousness was more powerful than your sins. On the third day he rose again from the grave triumphing having played completely the penalty and the punishment for your sin and now if you believe in him and you'll trust in him and you'll accept the payment he's made for you and those sins will be accounted as atoned for in your life, and you can enter into a relationship with God and know Him forever. Now there's more to it than that, but does that help you understand what we mean when we say that Jesus has died for our sins? It's a way that they can begin to picture and understand these things. It should be a way for you to understand it as well. That's God saving us. That's Jesus fulfilling his name, Jesus. The Lord saves, but now he had a purpose for that. was to introduce himself to as Emmanuel, God with us, was to bring us into a relationship with Him. In Luke chapter 24, if you'll turn there for a moment, we have the account of the Lord Jesus having the moment in time this takes place is the moment at which the Lord Jesus has fulfilled this great work of saving us from our sins, of dying on the cross for our sins, of in a sense fulfilling the purpose and meaning of His name which is that the Lord saves and now we have a portrait or picture of the Lord Jesus living out or giving expression to this second name that's mentioned in the book of Matthew in chapter 1 to Joseph, Emmanuel and we're going to read about it in verses 13 through 15. I must say I knew that this message was coming up we have been doing a series for seven weeks on the antiphones and so I knew the last one would be on Emmanuel and And it actually is very difficult to think about how to preach on that topic because it's so broad. It's written all throughout our Bibles. Where will I begin? What verse will I use? I tried a number of them to try to find the approach. I think it was the day after New Year's. I decided I was gonna renew myself in reading a certain devotional book through this next year. And I'll recommend this to you as well. It's a book by J. Sidlow Baxter called Awake My Heart. I think some of you have it. I'm reluctant oftentimes to recommend this book because periodically I cheat and I use outlines from J. Sid Lobaxter in some of my sermons. So if you are reading it, sometimes you'll hear J. Sid Lobaxter and his ideas. Well, you're going to hear it this morning because I think it was the second or third day of January that I began to read his testimony and I discovered all through this week, and there are seven different days in which he writes, that four of those days deal with this idea of, how wonderful, God with us. He begins by showing us this passage I'm going to read to you here in Luke chapter 24 verses 13 through 15. Now behold, two of them were traveling that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was seven miles from Jerusalem, and they talked together of all these things which had happened. What had just happened? The Lord Jesus had been crucified, he'd been buried, and now there were rumors of individuals that they have seen him resurrected and rising from the dead, and there's a report from the women, but they haven't believed the women's report because that's who the Lord Jesus showed himself to first, and this is the conversation they're going through, but they're talking about the Lord Jesus and what's taken place, and so it was in verse 15 while they conversed and reasoned that Jesus himself drew near and went with them. Jason Lou Baxter calls us to pause for a moment and not rush through the verses or the words that we find at the end of verse 15. Because they take us in a course from good to better to best. And so that's what we're gonna do this morning. We're gonna look at the good, we're gonna look at the better, and we're gonna look at the best, and we're gonna follow his outline. So here's first the good. None other than Jesus himself. It says there, see that? Jesus himself has joined these two, himself. himself. John could have written, Jesus drew near to them. But he was led by the Holy Spirit to write, Jesus himself drew near to them. In other words, the emphasis here is that this was not a shadowed presence. That this wasn't some apparition that came to them. That this wasn't some individual or stranger that they walked with who was a blessing to them and then they imposed in their imagination the idea that this had been Jesus Christ. You have individuals who have loved ones who pass away and at the memorial service they shake out their ashes in some place and some butterfly flies underneath their nose and they get all emotional and feel that you know there was their lost loved one making themselves known in a butterfly or somehow for the next few days after that person has passed away on their windowsill every morning is some bird that's sitting in the windowsill and once again it's it's this person has come back to give them comfort and I'm not saying that that wouldn't be comforting and that wouldn't be encouraging but that's not what's happening here they're not seeing some apparition they're not imposing some meaning or looking for some purpose or they're not some aggroping for some lost presence to be reintroduced to them in some way through some person relaying a spiritual presence to them or them projecting their desires and wishes and their longing and their sense of separation upon the reintroduction of some individual who comes before them. No, this is Jesus himself. This is the one who walked with him in the hills of Judea. This is the one who taught them on the shores of Galilee. This is the one that they walked with and were in presence of as he walked through the various villages, healing the sick and the ailing. This is him. This is Jesus, the same Jesus himself that's with them. This is who offers himself to us today. Not a fictitious Jesus. Not a Jesus who's been groomed and cultivated by the religious people throughout the ages. This is not the airbrushed Jesus of the paintings that we see. This is not the Jesus that is formulated from different sentimental notions that are passed down from one generation to the next. this is the Jesus who came and walked upon this earth and lived a sinless life and upon this earth died on a cross and was buried in a grave and rose again and from this earth ascended into heaven and said he's coming back to this earth one day for us it's that Jesus himself the one that Peter and James and John knew and others knew as well as they leaned upon his breast and communed with him that's the Jesus who offers himself to us today to come to us. There has been a notion in Christendom and through different academics at times to look back into history and through a series of historical analysis to somehow fix their understanding of who the historical Jesus really was. An interesting thing that's taking place every time this exercise takes place, and that is that whoever the historian is, that he discovers a Jesus very much like himself. A Jesus with the same social sensitivities he has, the same political sensitivities he has, a Jesus who basically shares the same moral compass that he has. And someone has described this phenomenon and said that basically what these historians have done is they've looked down the long, dark, deep well of history to find the historical Jesus only to see a reflection of their own faces in the pool below. He's just like them. If you go back and you find this, not very long ago, if you'd find a book that was a devotional book for athletes, you'd find that Jesus, as you read about it, had been a carpenter with strong hands, and he was probably a certain height, and he would have made a good quarterback, right? He was, that's the Jesus. He's the quarterback Jesus, or whatever it is you need. He's the cowboy Jesus. He's the sentimental cowboy who writes poem Jesus, poems, or whatever, whatever it is, whatever you need, whatever, That's the Jesus for you. Well, that's not the one who comes to us. It's the Jesus who died and was risen and who is alive himself who comes to us. The Jesus who was and is and always will be who is offering himself to you and I. He's not the one that we project ourselves upon and our wishes upon and our desires upon and our ideas upon. He's the one who comes to us with transforming power to transform us into his radical self. It's himself that comes to us. That Christ who comes to us. That's where we find unity by the way. So we, the wonderful thing is if you know this is true, you'll travel around the world and you'll discover individuals who have met this Jesus. And you'll find that as he's transforming them, that he's transforming us in common and wonderful ways. We like one another. and we see the similitude of our brotherhood and our sisterhood with them because we're being conformed together in the image of that Jesus himself here's the second thing it's better than that the second that is better is this it says Jesus himself drew near to them, drew near to them. He made himself known to them. They had been conversing about him and he came to them to share in their conversation. If you go on and read the passage, you'll see that he opens the scripture up to them and he begins to teach them how the scriptures had to be fulfilled about the Christ, about himself. And you'll see ultimately that he stops and he enters the home with them and he breaks bread with them and as he's breaking bread with them, he opens their eyes to recognize fully and completely that it's him. We have this shocking experience of him and then he departs from them in that very place. He just disappears from their sight and they say, did not our hearts burn within us? As he walked with us and talked with us on the way, he impacted them in a tremendously visceral way. Again, from a different devotional a few days after the first day in which I read that devotional by J. Sid Loeb Baxter, he makes another observation. And his observation is that following the resurrection of Jesus Christ, for 40 days we read that he appeared to his disciples at different times. But what we discover is that he didn't just remain with them. There were long intervals when he wasn't with them. And then all of a sudden, if you read the text you see, he appears and he comes over. He enters into a room where the doors are all shut. And all of a sudden he's there among them. And he says, do you have a piece of fish to eat? And he asked for something, some honey to eat. And then he communes with them and he chides them for their lack of faith. And then again, you know, they tell Thomas. Thomas, we've seen him and he's risen and we've touched him and we've communed with him and we've eaten with him. And Thomas basically says, unless I get the same treatment you got I'm not gonna believe you in fact unless I can put my fingers into his hands and the wounds in his hand and his side I won't believe and then Jesus appears to Thomas Council for Thomas said, Thomas here, put your fingers here in my hand and don't be unbelieving. Put your fingers on my side and don't be unbelieving. And then, you know, they don't know where to go. And so a number of them go down to the Sea of Galilee and they're fishing out on the Sea of Galilee. And all of a sudden there's someone on the shoreline and he's telling them where to cast their nets because they've not been successful all night long. And by the way, that happened at the very beginning of Jesus' ministry. And they cast their net and the net becomes full of fish. And then John recognizes that it's Jesus. And we're told that Peter leaps out of the boat and swims the shore. And when he gets to the shore, The Lord Jesus has a fire there with a bunch of fish that he's cooking up for them. and he feeds them, and again, we could imagine the communion they had with him there and the instruction, and you go on and on, you'll see this. The Lord Jesus will appear after long intervals over that 40 day for short periods of time to speak to them and to communicate to them, to draw near to them, and you might remember, he tells them to go to the place where he'd appointed them, which would be somewhere in Galilee where he had called the disciples up into the mountain and he chose the 12, and he tells them to go back to that place, and when they go to that place, They find him standing there before them. He appears before them. It says they bowed down and they worship. There he told them and gave them that commission to go into all the world and preach the gospel. And he promised that he would be with them wherever they went. With them wherever they went. But here in these moments, he draws near to them in a sense. And one of the things we find out when he draws near to them is that he was aware of what they were talking about when he was invisible to them. when they didn't see him when he wasn't present in those intervals that were taking place the Lord Jesus was demonstrating that even in those intervals he knew what the conversations were that's why he shows up and says oh you have little faith that's why he shows up to Thomas says Thomas I heard what you're saying here put your fingers here put your hand there and he he's showing them as he draws near to them in those moments That He knows what their deep thoughts are. He knows what their longings are. He knows what their doubts are. He knows what their needs are. He knows what their conversation is. It's as if He's reading their notes. He's listening to their conversations. And as He draws near, He reveals that He's been there all along. And by the way, this is the experience that takes place when a person comes to faith in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. It is not just simply the end of some intellectual process where intellectually they just conclude that I know now the argument for the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and I believe it's taken place, and I believe this was the purpose, and I put my faith in Him, and I'm not discounting all that. I'm saying that takes place. But really the final convincing thing for them, the most convincing thing for them is, that Jesus draws near to them. He comes, makes himself known to them, and he communicates to them, I've heard you. I know what the desire of your heart is. I know what your prayer is. I know what the longing is. I know what your questions are. I've been listening and I have the answer for all these things. And it's a overwhelming experience. It's an experience that is this encounter, this manifestation of God in our lives. It's not just an intellectual thing. It's a spiritual encounter of Jesus himself drawing near to individuals. In fact, when we share the gospel with individuals, we bring them to understand this point. You're not searching for God. You're not finding him. You don't reason your way to God. Jesus has said it works this way. Behold, I stand at the door and I knock. And if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, do you recognize that he's here, that he's knocking? Do you hear his voice? This is Jesus. He's calling to you. And the moment at which a person turns their life to God, and even as we move deeper into a relationship with God, it's because God draws near to us. Jesus draws near to us and communicates that it's God's divine initiative calling us into himself. And then as we go in our Christian life, we have these ongoing experiences where Jesus himself draws near to us again and again to show us things and to reveal to us that he's heard our cries and our prayers and our longing and he knows your design in the most intimate way. If you pay attention, he'll draw near to you and he'll speak to you and it continues on in our Christian life that way as he communicates to us. quite amazing Christ himself drew near to the manifested himself to show them I'm the one knows the things you've been conversing about the debate you're having and I have all the answers that's a profound thing to take place it's a wonderful thing when we go do the gospel share the gospel people because we believe God is actually working ahead of us convicting people of sin and righteousness and judgment to the Holy Spirit and he's stirring up these questions within him and there are these moments in which they realize God is here Those are the desires of my life, and this is the answer. It's quite powerful. Here's the third thing. It's the best. Jesus himself drew near to them, and here we read, and he went with them. He went with them. I hope that everyone here can relate to this. If you can't, don't share it with us here in the service. You can later on, we can talk about this later on. I think that the most wonderful thing about a good marriage is just being with the other person. Just being with the other person. being in such a relationship in which you just share presence with one another in times, conversation, but also in the quietness of, well, there's something about it, even that you're with that person for so long that the cadence of your slumber even begins to mesh together, right? You begin to breathe in cadence with one another. You've just been with one another so long, and it's a wonderful, wonderful thing. I hope you've all known that experience. Little kids grow up knowing that. They're born into a family and they're with their brothers and sisters and they grew up in that place and it's that withness that enriches their life. It's the thing that you'll tell tales of. It's as you get old and you get together and you'll want to go back and reminisce. You'll reminisce about all the things you enjoyed and experienced when you were with one another. It's the great The great thing that we are born for and that we need above everything else and at the same time all of us have had experiences in which we have been in the presence of other individuals for long periods of time and yet we've come away from those times with those other individuals feeling as if they were not with us. A feeling as if they left knowing nothing about us nor our experience of them and how we engage them. We were in a sense mere cogs in the social mechanism that provided some dynamic for their day, but we ourselves were largely not seen in that experience. Could have been anybody else and would have made no difference whatsoever. And I'm actually afraid that many times that might be the dynamic that people experience for us many times. But I just want to tell you it's not the way that we've learned from the Lord Jesus. It's not how we experience him. When He comes to us, He comes to be with us. He listens to us, and He hears us, and He sees us, and He watches over us, and He's attentive to ourselves, and He promised His disciples when He sent them out as messengers to the gospel to the ends of the earth, He said, lo, I'll be with you always, even to the end of the age. Now, we talked about the wonder of just being with a person, and that's the great thing about a marriage, and my wife just had to leave. I think my little boy was a little too chatty. But you know when she's here in the service, I like it better when she's not. When she's in the house, I enjoy my home much more than even if she go out to go shopping for a little while. When she's not there, I know I'm not with her. A person can say, oh, well, you're always with me in my heart. Well, listen, I've traveled long enough to know that although I love my wife and I have thoughts of her and those thoughts are always with me, that when I get in the plane and I'm sitting in the middle seat in economy class between two rather large, bulky individuals, that I'm not with my wife. This is a different dynamic. And I don't particularly enjoy it. and I long for the time I leave, I have to actually, I've learned to discipline myself to not, I used to do this and it would make the days go so long, I would start counting down the days until I could go back to be with my wife and my family and oh, I had to stop doing that because it would just make the days just go by too slowly. We're not always with one another. But if you put your faith in Jesus Christ, and you've trusted in Him, and you believe Him as your Savior, and you've allowed Him to come and forgive you of all your sins, and you've responded to the knock that He gives on the door of your heart and your life to come and enter in and inhabit you, and you responded to Him when He drew near to you, He's with you. He's always with you. He's never left you. He's with you. this is the most substantial and meaningful experience in your life. Those disciples who after the resurrection of Jesus Christ for 40 days sporadically the Lord Jesus would show up and reveal himself what he was actually revealing to them was even when he was invisible and they didn't see him he was with them he was revealing to them oh I've been listening to the conversations you've been having he was teaching a lesson that even though they didn't have their eyes upon him he was with them and he would always be with them. You go and preach the gospel and this will keep working. I'll always be with you. Even to the end of the age. That was the design. That was the purpose of all this. So that you would be with me and I would be with you. How meaningful, how wonderful. Paul comes to the end of his ministry in 2 Timothy chapter 4 and verses 16 and 17 he shares something that's not a great compliment to the church. He shares in a sense his personal disposition in that very moment. Where his life played out to in that very moment through all the ministry he's had. He's been brought under arrest for his ministry and as a result he's been brought before judgment, before the Roman authorities. Eventually Paul will be beheaded because of this. But Paul writes this, at my first defense No one stood with me, but all forsook me. May it not be charged against them. It's kind of a sad statement. That's kind of like that picture we said of people that you're with, and you know you're really not with them. They don't really show up. That they weren't engaging you, and listening to you, and alongside of you, and giving themselves to you. And that was his experience, sadly enough. Verse 17, here's his encouragement. But the Lord stood with me and strengthened me. Here's, in a sense, the last testimony of the life of Paul and his ministry. The Lord was with me and the Lord strengthened me. That should be the testimony of the Christian life. That should be the story that you tell. The story you tell throughout your life when you gather with people is a reminiscence of what you did with this person and that person at a high school reunion. You think about what you did when you were with one another and when you meet some friend that you grew up with that you used to play with as a child, you think of the things you did with one another, et cetera. But the great overarching story of the growing Christian is a story of being with God and with Jesus. If you look at your life, can you really tell that story? Is that the dominant story and lesson and account of your life? Since the day you met Him, you've been with Him. That's God's design, that's God's desire. That's the trajectory He wants to put you on. Yes, there's service that we render to God. Yes, there's study that we give in His Word. Yes, there's good works that we do, and there's prayers that we pray, and there's fellowship that we share together, but the real question is, is God there? Is this all just an expression of being with the Lord Jesus? You know, if you enjoy him, you find out you don't want to just enjoy him by yourself. You want to enjoy him with others. I think one of the things that as you age you realize, when I began my Christian walk, I can think of times when I was a young man and I was alone in my room. and I was longing to experience the Lord Jesus. Longing for him to impart my life. Sometimes just brought to tears in this romantic pursuit of this unique and wonderful relationship with the God of all creation. And then in that relationship, I set out to serve him and to make him known. At some point in time, things change in a sense. I had a picture of mine that came to this as I was driving to church today. At some point in time, it's like there were these different I began to be like a hen sitting on a nest. There's different eggs that you start sitting on. You're incubating things. You think as you get older that we have less to do, but it's like all of us have these responsibilities, people that we're concerned for, children we're concerned for, and they accumulate, and it's like these eggs that we're incubating, right? We're just sitting there, and all well and good, but oh, to be reminded that the Lord Jesus saved you and I for himself. so we would be with Him and experience Him and know Him. What do I want in the year that comes? I want to answer that romantic call of my God. I want in all that I do and all the actions that I take to be taken in this great pursuit to enjoy being with Him. That that would be the thing that defines or arches over all the things that we experience. This is what He offers us. This is what He calls us to. Ultimately, He's preparing to take us back to the garden where everything will revolve in a new way, in a perfected creation around us. Well, around us being with Him. The hymn that says, describe the climax of heaven on earth this way. I'll close with this. He and I, in that bright glory, one deep joy shall share. Mine to be forever with him, and his that I am there. Let's bow our heads. A response that we would give. You'll gauge it from our hearts to see if this is the true and deep desire of your redeemed people. Oh God, we want to be with you. We want nothing between me and my Savior. Our desire to confess sins, our desire, Lord, to come before you and acknowledge our wandering, is just so that we might rehearse and remind ourselves of the shed blood you gave for our sins to wash us and cleanse us. So that we might, in a sense, recalibrate ourselves back to your design and your purpose and then live in it. that we might experience Emmanuel God with us. That we might learn to walk with you in this world as it is, dark and dank with disease around us. but reimagine with you what the grand architect will do when he makes all things new. And we will be with you in that place. Now, God, with you in this place, dreaming of that day and wanting to be faithful until you come. Lord, may that be what you find in us, we ask in Jesus' name. Amen.