Peace on Earth

My parents being separated, it really affected me a lot, to say the least, but I ended up getting back into a school system, I was homeschooled for about three years, and I went to this school in middle school, and I had a friend named David who, David was, he was a really good friend of me and our little friend group. But he would always invite me to church, he would ask, he'd be like, hey, come to youth group, you know, just, it's awesome, and I would always say no, I'd always say, I don't really want to do any of that, you know, I'm good, I'm good where I'm at, I'm finally back to where I want to be. But one day, after probably the hundredth time he had asked me, but also important, he was never, he was never, like, really buggy about me. He always just came, like, once a week to me and was like, hey, you want to come? And I was like, no, and he'd be like, okay, that's cool, you know, maybe next week you'll change your mind.

But one of those weeks I actually did change my mind, and I went to a church, started going to their youth group, and it changed my life. This is, like, the beginning, so I don't know why I'm crying at the beginning, but I gave my life, but I ended up coming home that night. I'm sorry. I went and told my mom what had happened. I was like, Mom, I got filled with the Holy Spirit.

Like, I'm good, I'm alive. And she thought I was crazy. She had been hurt a lot by the church, to give her that, but she thought I was crazy. Grant was happy for me, proud of me. And I kept asking my mom, I was like, hey, I want to find a church where I can go to on Sunday.

Because I was going to this youth group for quite a bit at that time. I was going for about a few months. But I finally asked my mom, I was like, hey, I want to go to a church. Like, I want to find a church. And she still thought I was crazy, but she had a friend at the time who was attending SALT.

And she asked, she had asked her and was like, hey, you know, I know you go to church. My son really wants to get into church. Where can we go? And so she invited us to church on Sunday. And I think we were going there for a few times, correct me if I'm wrong, but my mom.

Yeah, that's Shannon. So fucking. I don't know. You Ended up living her life as well. Grant had always been in a church, kind of, but he ended up coming back to it, kind of, I want to say, rededicating back to it.

But fast forward now, we've been going here for about, what, four years? Three and a half years. But I'll never forget one big thing that kind of regave me a purpose was, I never forget this, but George, actually, he invited me to start on the tech team doing lyrics. And he invited me and my friend Alex at the time, who was going with me, he invited us to start doing lyrics. And we ended up falling in love with it, fell in love with the church.

My mom loved it. She got into her position, her role, what she loved to do. Later on, Grant started becoming kind of like an associate pastor, helping out in that area and just, just, but, you know, Pastor Lee, that's probably about to come up here and talk. Probably say some things, but one thing that I will say that salt really did change, not only my life, but my whole man's life. And one important thing to note too, my biggest fear growing up, as I said before, was my mom and my dad separating.

Just one thing that I will say that has been a big part is that my biggest fear of my parents separating actually became the biggest blessing in my life. I wouldn't have two little sisters. I wouldn't have my stepdad. I wouldn't have come to know Christ. I wouldn't have, my mom wouldn't have came to know Christ.

Just all that. He's my biggest fear. Turned it into the biggest blessing that I could have asked for. And he's, he wants to be a pastor. So he's, he's prepping up for that, visiting colleges.

And we're praying that he goes to Regent and stays in the area. But, but guys, this is, this is why we do what we do. This is why we do what we do. A little bit of salt goes a long way, right? And there's a lot of Matthews out there right now that are where he was.

And a family that's not connected to a church family, a family that does not know the Lord, a family. That has wandered away from God. And we do everything we can in our power. The reason I gave my life to doing this, to being a pastor, not only I was called to it, but I saw the need that there's a lot of people in our city that do not know Jesus. They don't have hope.

They're going into a Christmas season where they're going to be searching. They're going into an Easter season where they're going to be searching. They're coming into different seasons where they're looking for something. That's why we're here. That's why we're here.

And invite, invite, invite. That was a good one. Invited. You got invited over and over and over again. You have some people in your lives that you're inviting over and over and over and over again.

Do it over and over and over again. Just continue to do it. They'll eventually say, all right, come on. And it could be, it could be that Sunday that makes the difference. So we are, we want to just kind of pop this up again, our end of year legacy giving.

This is what we're giving to, in order to build the future of our church. We want to see our church do, we don't want to just stop here. We want to see hundreds of families, if not thousands of families, whatever God calls us to, to reach more Matthews and reach more families. And the only way we can do that is coming together, leaning in, trusting God. And we have different options.

Choose a gift that's right for you. So far, we've, we've kickstarted about $3,000 in giving. Amen to that. Let's, we've still got about $47,000 ready to get there. We're going to do this till January 14th is our 15th, the middle of January.

So I ask that you pray and help us and let's come together to, to make a difference. Uh, this will not only set us healthy for next year, our budgets and things like that. It will also put us, give us an opportunity to move forward and finding our permanent location. And, uh, and I just believe that you're going to create a legacy far past where you are right now. This is not about us.

This is about the world, right? We're reaching the world, right? That's what salt is all about. Salt, uh, you are the salt of the world. You're not the salt of just us.

You're the salt of the world. And we want to demonstrate that in the name of Jesus. Amen. All right. Just, just a few announcements.

So, uh, right after service, we're having our pitchers and pastries. So, so you'll have some goodies outside, uh, as you go out and get you a nice pitcher for your Christmas cards or to hang on your, your wall, uh, throughout the year. Um, we still got one on our wall that we took quite a few years ago. We love, and it's precious to us. So we're, we just wanted to bless you with that.

Next week, we're doing something. This is the first time we've ever done this. We're calling it Christmas giving. Christmas giving. And what we're going to do, what we're going to do, uh, anything, yeah, yeah.

Uh, a few people know about Christmas giving. The rest of you are getting ready to know in just a second. So, uh, what we're going to do that week, anything you give, we're going to, we're going to take up an offering next week. Anything that you give. Anything that you give.

To this offering, we're giving it away. We're giving it to a ministry. We're giving it to church planters and a ministry in this area. We'll tell you more about that next week. So you need to be here to be a part of that.

Let's give big. Let's be generous. I want to challenge you. I want to push you to be generous, okay? I want to push you beyond your limits.

My duty as a pastor is to help you to be generous like God. So let's be generous like God. Let's push forward in that. Also, don't forget, we have Christmas coming, Christmas coming. So invite, invite, invite, invite.

Right, Matthew? Let's invite, invite, invite, invite. We have signs. If you haven't got a sign yet, take that and put it out in your home. You got cards.

If you need some cards, we're going to hand out those cards and have them to you. You can grab some of those. Invite people to church on Christmas because we want to see people changed just like you. Yeah, one life at a time, right? One soul at a time, one life at a time, one soul at a time.

And maybe that's you, that, that, that maybe, maybe that's one person that you know in your life. So let's do this together, guys. All right. Heard the bells on Christmas Day, rolled familiar carols play, and wild and sweet, their words repeat, of peace on earth, good peoples of all christened up in song, of peace I said, it's the song. I heard the bells on Christmas Day.

There is a note in that song, or a verse in that song, that says, And in despair I bow my head. There is no peace on earth, I said, for hate is strong and mocks the song of peace on earth, goodwill toward men. Sometimes it feels like there is no peace on earth. It is hard to sing a Christmas carol. We are in a series called A Christmas Carol.

We are learning how to sing a Christmas carol again, but what we find is in moments where there were trials and tribulation and calamity, it is hard to sing a Christmas carol. God desires for us to sing a Christmas carol, but at times we just see no peace on earth. So today I want to deal with the present, the ghost of Christmas present. I heard the bells on Christmas Day. How do we even hear the bells on Christmas Day?

Bono wrote a song, U2's lead singer Bono wrote a song back in the late 90's after the... Oh... On a bombing where 29 people were killed in a paramilitary action taken against Northern Ireland. And in despair he wrote this song. Critics would call it the most agnostic song they've ever heard from U2.

It said this, it said, Jesus, can you take the time to throw a drowning man a line? Peace on Earth. I tell you, the ones who hear no song, whose sons are living in the ground, peace on Earth. Jesus, in the song you wrote, the words are sticking in my throat. Peace on Earth.

Hear it every Christmas time, but hope and history won't rhyme. So what's it worth? What's it worth? Peace on Earth. Today I want to deal with why bad things happen.

Why do bad things happen? Why? A lot of us have had that question whether we're a believer in Jesus or not. There are those questions of why do bad things happen? Why do innocent children have to die?

Why are people taken before their time? Why are there earthquakes? Why are there tsunamis? Why are there natural disasters where we see thousands of people devastated, their lives taken away from them? Why can't I get ahead?

Maybe some of you are dealing with that in your personal life. Why can I get ahead? Why can I keep a job? Why did my spouse leave me when I did all I could to make this marriage work? Why do I feel so betrayed by my friend?

Why did this happen? I'm a good person. I try to do the right things, God. I'm a follower of Christ, but why? Why do these things happen?

And today, we feel it more than ever, I'm sure. Many people are feeling the pain of a failing economy where life savings are draining away and your prosperity is in trouble right now. Just the other week, we had a school shooting take place in Nevada where we saw a number of people that are killed, and we asked again a school shooting. What is going on? What's happening?

Then we have war. We have war all around us. Where's the peace? You got Ukraine. You have Israel and Palestine.

Women and children killed. Many bystanders killed. What is going on? Where is the peace in this world? Where do we find peace?

And some of you just woke up this morning and couldn't get your coffee maker going, you know? And you're like, I came to church today and I don't have any caffeine in my system. And some mornings, it feels like that, right? The kids can't find their shoes. You don't know where your toothbrush is, and you're looking all over the house.

And my goodness, the charger situation, you know? You're trying to find a charger. You forgot to charge your phone. You want to charge it a little bit before you leave the house. And for some reason, they're like socks.

They disappear. We don't know where they are. Lots of things happening in our personal lives. And those are lighthearted things. But on a heavier note...

Moran and I have been doing a lot of crying in the last couple of weeks because we felt pain. We felt some heartache recently. Tuesday, my aunt passed away. And right when she was leaving this world, my father was running himself to the ER, thinking that he was having another heart attack. Luckily, by the grace of God, they found it was a blood clot and he's doing better now.

But, you know, when that happens, it's funny how things happen in threes or more. When they happen, they don't happen in ones, they happen in threes. And then I was scrolling through social media the week before, and I came across a picture of my son's best friend with his father, with a caption on it, saying that Judah had left us and went to be with the Lord the night before. We found out that he had died suddenly and tragically, a 12-year-old boy. And we sat in the memorial service yesterday crying and remembering.

And sometimes we ask ourselves, why this? So senseless. Senseless things. Why do they have to be taken away? Why do things like this have to happen to good families, to good Christian people?

Why do these things happen? That's a question I'm sure all of us have said from time to time, me included. And that's a question that's been asked for thousands of years. Abraham said, should not the judge of the world judge fairly? Moses said, God, why don't you treat your people like they deserve to be treated?

Jeremiah said, why do the wicked prosper? Why do the wicked keep getting rich and the good keep getting poorer? David said, God, why didn't you answer my prayers? God, where are you? God, why don't you just show yourself?

I can't see you. Why don't you deliver me? Why don't you sing fair? Over and over again in the Psalms, we see David crying out these things. And there's no clear answer.

I can't give you a clear answer of why God does what He does and how He works. I don't have the answers. In fact, I'm trying to figure it out from time to time myself. And there's no way we can begin to understand all that God does. Because God's so much bigger than us.

And I've done memorials. In fact, I had funerals in the same week with adults and children in the same week that passed away on the same day. And you just wonder, why do these things happen? Healthy man, within a year, goes to be with the Lord, cancer. A young little boy, cancer, goes to be with Jesus.

You just, why? Why? Why do they happen to good people? Why do they happen to good families? Those are the things we ask.

And there's another man that asked this very question in the Bible. His name was Job. And Job is a story that we can go to any time if we are dealing with the question of why. Because Job was a good man. He was a godly man.

God loved Job, but Job went through a lot. He lost his land. He lost his prosperity. He lost his money. He lost everything he had.

He was a very, very wealthy man, probably one of the wealthiest of his time. He lost everything. Not only that, he lost his kids. They were killed. And then he got sick himself.

And he was in a place where you just, God, what are you doing? Why is all of this happening? And he cries out, if you go to the book of Job, for 38 chapters. For 38 chapters, he cried to God. And God remained silent.

He said, God, why? God, why is this happening? What's going on here? And then God silently lets him process his things, and then he leans in. And he says, I'm getting ready to unload on you, Job.

Here's what's going on, Job. You can't even. Were you there? Were you there when I laid the foundations of the earth? Were you there when the angels rejoiced at creation and praised my name and glorified my name?

You don't even understand how a single dew falls from the sky. How can you even comprehend who I am? Job, if I gave you everything that I could give you, you wouldn't be able to hold on to what I'm able to tell you. And then Job's response is this. In chapter 42, Job replied to the Lord.

He says, I know that you can do all things. No purpose of yours can be thwarted. You ask, who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge? Surely I have spoken things I do not understand. And here's the key.

Things too wonderful for me to know. Things too wonderful for me to know. My ears had heard of you, but now my eyes have seen. My eyes have seen. And I understand now, Lord.

I understand. I can't know it all. But I can trust you and I know that the things that you have in store, I can't even comprehend right now. I don't know what's going on in this world. I don't understand it all.

And I cannot be you. And I turn us to Jesus. I turn us to the personification of who the Father is. And that's Jesus Christ. What did He say about troubles in this world?

I think He's an excellent source to go to when we're dealing with troubles. In John 16, He says, I have said these things to you that in me you may have peace. He's been teaching them. He's been showing them things. He's been helping them have peace in such troubled times.

He says this, In this world you will have trouble. He didn't say in this world you might have trouble. He says you will have trouble. He didn't say in this world if you follow me, you're going to be saved from all your trouble in this life. He doesn't say that.

He says in this world you will have trouble, but take heart because I have overcome the world. I have overcome the world. And we can have hope in that. And some of you have come in here today, you know, you've heard this message and you're like, this is Christmas. Christmas.

Christmas. Pastor, be positive. Have a positive message. I'm positive that you're going to have trouble in this world, okay? But take heart, because I have overcome the world.

And it's interesting how God uses troubled situations, how He uses situations that we wouldn't even think of, to bring about and reveal His glory. Let's take two instances, the Christmas story and the Easter story. Yes, I'm going to give you an Easter message on Christmas, okay? All right, first of all, the Christmas story. Let's just think about this for a minute.

A young girl named Mary, she's a teenager. She's very, very young. Enjoying her life, wakes up in the morning. She's getting ready to get married. Joseph is her fiancé.

She's super excited about that, planning out her wedding. And then, boom, this angel appears and tells her she's going to have God. She's going to birth God. And it's like, what in the world is going on? Now, she was excited in some sense, but in a lot of ways, just imagine the fear in her heart.

Okay, let me step back for a minute. I'm getting ready to have a child, and there's no dad. And I'm going to have to explain this to Joseph, and I'm going to have to explain this to the people in my village. I'll be ostracized. I'll never be able to wed.

I might be alone the rest of my life. I don't know what's going to come of this. Obviously, you read the Bible, and Joseph is visited by an angel and tells him and confirms with him, Hey, this is happening. So he comes and partners with her and says, We're going to do this together. God has called us to do this, which is a great thing.

But look, uh-oh, the world is taxed. We've got to go to our home city to be taxed. What better time, or worse time, rather, to have taxes come upon you? Taxes always show up when you don't want them, don't they? I mean, even back then.

So they had to go to their home city, had to get a donkey. It wasn't like a nice Mustang to ride in, okay? It was a donkey on a terrain that was hard to travel, a pregnant woman taking that journey. Just awful. What is going on?

And, oh, wait a minute. Joseph, I think I'm getting ready to have the child. I'm going to have the baby. It's coming. Oh, no.

What are we going to do? No problem. Mary, we'll just go over to the nearest hotel, check in, and we'll get you right, and we'll figure this out. Oh, wait a minute. Everybody's traveling, so there's no room.

There's nowhere. Well, there's a barn in the backyard, okay? There's some poop on the ground, some animals and stuff like that. I'm sorry about that, but that's all we have. We'll take it.

And here we are in a shed in the back of an inn with animals, and here is the Christ child being born. We romanticized the nativity scene, but it wasn't anything to look at. It's amazing how God uses interesting situations to reveal His glory. And not only that, God appears again and says, y'all got to run or y'all going to die. Is this going to get any worse?

There's somebody after you. King Herod is after you, and they also learned that because of their child. Imagine a mother. Mother's heart when she hears that there were hundreds of children that were killed because of them. Could you imagine God revealing Himself in tragedy, calamity?

This is nothing new. Let's fast forward to Easter. They believed that there was going to be this king to come to the earth, this righteous king. And here's Jesus performing miracles, teaching in extraordinary ways like they've never seen before. Here, this must be the Messiah.

This must be Him. He's going to take the world by storm. We're going to follow Him. But instead, Jesus is arrested, put on criminal charges, put to death by crucifixion, so degraded, so humiliated, inhumane, even a Roman citizen wasn't allowed to be crucified. Here, Jesus is being crucified like a common man, lower than a common man, in fact.

And disciples scatter. What are we going to do? Where are we going to go? What's going to happen? I mean, did we get it wrong?

God, we followed you. Is this what happens when we follow you? Is this what happens when we try to do your work and your will? Is this it? And they cowered away in disbelief.

They didn't believe. But what changed their minds? What changed their minds? In Luke 24, this is what changed their minds. On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb, and they found the stone rolled away from the tomb.

But when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. And while they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In their fright, the woman bowed down with their heads face to the ground. But the man said to them, Why do you look for the living among the dead? Why do you look for the living among the dead?

He is not here. He has risen. That's the power. That's where the statement changes everything. That's where that scripture changes everything.

Why are you looking for the living among the dead? I ask you the same question. Why are you looking? Why are we looking for the living among the dead? He is not here.

What changed everything was resurrection. What changed people's views and what changed people's cowardness and they stood up and they went out and they proclaimed Christ and gave their lives for the cause of Jesus wasn't just because of some hearsay or some kind of speculations about Jesus. It was eyewitnesses to the account that Jesus, he says, Here I am. He showed up to them on multiple occasions, taught them, told them, I'm leaving you. Go out and make disciples of all nations.

That's why they did that. They did. He didn't do it just because there was some kind of teaching in the distance. It was because Jesus had risen from the dead. It's all about resurrection from the dead.

And without the event of the resurrection, as Paul would say, if Christ didn't rise from the dead, our preaching is useless and our faith is too. We have no faith if we don't have that to stand on, if we don't have that ground to stand on. But as we do, because we believe, because, and for you and me, not only has He risen from the dead, He's risen our lives. He's given a spiritual resurrection. He's working right now.

And He's resurrecting this world from death. And we hold on to that. We believe that because we too have been changed. I've been changed. The reason I'm up here today is because my life and my heart have been changed.

The old me is gone and the new me has come into place. I experienced the resurrection of Christ for myself. The reason why the church is still advancing, even in a dark world, the church is still going, even though where we are right now it might not seem that way, is because Jesus Christ is raised from the dead and He's raising people every day from the dead. And because I believe that, and because I believe that, I can believe in every promise in Scripture that He's given me. I can hold on to every promise.

Blessed assurance. Some of you probably know the old hymn. Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine. Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine. We used to sing that in church all the time growing up.

And it's just one of the most popular, beautiful, one of my favorite hymns. And that blessed assurance, those words just speak so true. The writer of that song was Fanny Crosby. She was a hymnist. And what you may not know about Fanny, if you knew that she was the writer, she was blind.

She was blind. She was blinded as a child. They say it might have been some type of medical mistake that they placed some cream on her eyes to help her with some infection, and it ended up blinding her. So all of her life, she was blinded. Not only that, she grew up without a father because her father had passed away within the first year of her being here.

So she never knew her father. She grew up, got married, but had one opportunity to have a child. She lost that child in birth. It was very painful for her and her husband. In fact, her husband lived the rest of his life sort of as a recluse.

They lived apart a lot. There's a very tragic life in our eyes. Oh, I cannot believe this happened. And we think about that. But she had an assurance.

She had an assurance of God. Blessed assurance. Jesus is mine. How do we get through times? I'll come back to her in a second.

But how do we get through times where we feel like, is this it? Blessed assurance. We have assurance on the promises. She held on to those promises. Here's what Paul said.

I am suffering. I am suffering, yet I am not ashamed, because I know whom I have believed. I know the resurrected Christ, I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him for that day. Every promise He holds on to until He is before the Lord one day. When He was walking this earth, He knew that the Lord was going to take Him through every situation, and He had those promises to hold on to until He made it to heaven.

And we can have that assurance, that blessed assurance, because of what? Because of resurrection. Because we serve a God that is alive and not dead. Do you believe that? Do you believe that?

We serve a God that is alive and not dead. Jesus is alive. So with that, what can we put our hope in? When we're struggling, when we're going through times of darkness, what do we put our trust in? Number one, that God loves me.

I know that God loves me because I know that I have a risen Savior. I know that His promises are true, and God loves me. Why does God love me? Because He said He loves me. Because He laid down His life for me.

He showed it. He didn't even say it. He didn't just say it. He actually did it. John 15 says, Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for a friend.

There's no greater love than that. If you're here today, maybe you need to know that God loves you. Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, we call him the crying prophet, the weeping prophet. You read his lamentations, and you see all these horrible things that are going on around Him, and he's writing about that, but he wrote this in chapter 3, verse 21. He says, Yet this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope.

Because of the Lord's great love, we are not consumed, for His compassion never fails. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. Even He knew that His love was greater than all that He was going through. He could hold on to the love.

And some of you may have walked in here today, and you don't know what love is. You're trying to figure it out. Can I tell you that you have a God that loves you? A personal God that loves you. A Savior that gave His life for you.

And you can put hope in that. Not only do you have a God that loves you, you have a God that wants the best for you. Number two, God wants the best for you. Because lots of people believe that we just have a mean God. He just wants us to do right.

But He wants the best for you. God is for us, not against us. That's what Paul says in Romans. He says, If God is for us, who can ever be against us? He wants the best for you, right?

How can He be against us since He did not spare even His own Son, but gave Him up for us all? Won't He also give us... Everything else? And it goes on to say, does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble and calamity? And persecution and hunger and destitute and are destitute or in danger or threatened with death?

No. Despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ. Who? What? Loved us.

And he wants the best for us. He wants to give us everything we need. He knows what's best for us. And because he loves me and I know that he wants what's best for me, I can go to the third point. God has a plan for me.

That what I'm going through, it is planned. There is a plan. And it's going to come out good. Things might seem terrible right now. It might not be the best season that you're in.

But can I say with complete confidence that God wants the best for you and he has a plan for your life? And if you can believe that he wants the best for you and have a plan for your life, you can walk through these seasons. I remind you of the man that was blinded in Scripture. The Pharisees and the people came to Jesus and said, What's wrong with this man? This man's been blind since birth.

Did he do something wrong? Did his parents do something wrong? What's going on here, Jesus? Give us an answer. Jesus responded like this in John 9.

Neither this man nor his parents sinned, Jesus said. But this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. God has a plan to display his glory through your calamity, through your frustrations, through your circumstances, through your disabilities. Everything that you've gone through is planned out for his glory and for your good. And you can trust in that and believe in that.

Fanny Crosby, going back to her, she gave her life to Jesus at 31 years old. And she made a statement to a friend, William Bradbury. He was a famous publisher and hymnist back in the late 1800s, early 1900s. And she said this, she said, I feel a hundred hymns in my head. The Lord has given me a purpose in my life.

See, and she goes on to make statements about, If I had not been blind, I would have not been able to write the way I've written. I would have not been able to see things the way I see them. It would have taken away from the thing that God had given me, the purpose that God had given me. And later on in her life, 85 years old, she made this statement about what had happened to her when she was a child. She said, I have not for a moment in more than 85 years felt a spark of resentment against him, the doctor, because I have always believed that the good Lord by this means consecrated me to the work that I am still permitted to do.

He consecrated me. He consecrated me. There is a reason why. The reason behind it that God has a plan for my life, for His glory. You may be familiar with the evangelist Nick Wojcic, an American evangelist.

He was born with no arms and no legs. He struggled with depression, bullying when he was younger. And one day he read John 9 about the man born with a disability and it changed his life. It changed his life. He made a decision to surrender to Christ.

And he said this, he wrote this. He said, Due to the emotional struggle I had experienced with bullying, self-esteem and loneliness, God began to instill a passion of sharing my story and experiences to help others cope with whatever challenges they might have in their lives. Turning my struggle into something that would glorify God and bless others, I realized my purpose. I realized my purpose. The Lord was going to use me to encourage and inspire others to live to the fullest potential and not let anything get in the way of accomplishing their hopes and their dreams.

God's purpose became clear to me and now I'm fully convinced and understand that His glory is revealed as He uses me just the way I am. And even more wonderful, He can use me in ways others can't be used. He has a plan for our lives. As Jeremiah said, For I know the plans I have for you. Plans to prosper you, not to harm you.

Plans to give you a hope and a future. Amen. We can hope, believe in that. We can hope in that. God has a plan.

God has a plan for our lives. And then finally, number four, God will bring me through. God will bring me through. That's the hope you can have. God is going to bring you through.

He loves you. He cares for you. He has a plan for your life. And He wants to bring you through. He wants to bring you through.

You are an overcomer. I have overcome the world, therefore you have overcome the world. As Paul writes to 2 Timothy 4.18, The Lord will escape or rescue me from every evil attack and will bring me safely to His heavenly kingdom. To Him be the glory forever and ever.

Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, my God will be by my side. He leads me by still waters. My God is always with me. Through every situation in life. Through every deep, dark place.

Where it seems like the dark street, you know, you're walking through like the carol in the dark streets shineth. It's dark streets we're walking down. But we can trust in Him. We can lean in Him. He is our everlasting light.

He walks us through and He gives us that promise that He will be with us. He will never leave us. He will never forsake us. He will always be by our side. He will encourage us.

He will bring us through. I know it's hard. I know there's times that are difficult. I know that people have been taken away from you in times that it just doesn't make sense. I know that children are taken away before their time.

I know that your grandma or grandfather or your mother or father were taken away from you. I know that you've had these experiences in your family that just are so difficult you just don't understand or you're walking through it right now. I know that the workforce that you're in right now is vague and you've just lost your job or or you're you're going through that time where you're trying to figure out how to make it just day to day. But let me tell you, I am with you and I'm walking you through it because I've made that promise because I am the resurrection and the life and nobody comes to the father. But through Jesus, who is Lord, who is God, who we can place our trust in.

And if you are not a believer today, you can make a decision to have somebody with you all the time to help you walk through your difficult situations. It may feel grim. It may not. You may not even feel God at times. You may not even know he's there.

Oh, my goodness. He's silent. He's so silent sometimes with me. I'm praying. I'm praying.

I can't hear him, but I know he's there. In fact, he's probably more there than he's ever been before because why? Because he loves me, his plan for my life, and he's going to walk me through it and he's going to get me to where I need to go. And I can trust him. I can trust him.

In closing, if you remember, Paul makes the statement that live is Christ, die is gain. See, Paul understood this. He knew that God was going to get him through either way. I mean, if he goes to heaven, he wins, right? If you go to heaven, you win.

Or if you stay in this life and you live a little longer, you win, too, because you get to share the gospel a little more, get to love some people a little more. That should be the attitude we all have. We all have. But there are times where we go through difficulties, through difficulties in life. I'll get a lower to music just a little bit.

And it says, I want to go back to that song, I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is the writer of that song. Let me tell you a little bit about Henry. His wife tragically died in a fire incident about a year before he wrote this song. She was in the living room just doing her child's hair.

Back then they used wax and they were hot wax to do their hair. And some fell on her and it caught fire on her dress. By the time he got in there, she was completely engulfed with fire. He jumped on her, tried to save her. She could not sustain the burns she had on her body.

She ended up passing away a few days later. He developed so many scars on his face, he grew his beard out to just hide them. And that's how bad the burns were on his face. He lost his wife. A year later, the Civil War breaks out.

The Civil War is in full swing. His son goes... He goes off to war to battle and gets critically injured, comes home, he may not ever be able to walk again. And here we have a man who's gone through trials, who's gone through, it's wartime, wars all around him. A widowed 57-year-old man with six children.

Six children, the oldest which is wounded, possibly never to walk again. And on Christmas 1863, he heard the bells ringing. He heard the bells ringing on Christmas Day in Cambridge, singing Peace on Earth. And that's why we have the lyrics. And in despair I bow my head, there is no peace on earth, I said, for hate is strong and mocks the song of peace on earth, goodwill toward man.

But he doesn't stop there. Listen to this and listen to it well. Then pealed the bells more loud and deep, God is not dead, nor doth he sleep. The wrong shall fail, the right prevail with peace on earth, goodwill toward man. The bells are ringing, guys.

I know it's hard to hear sometimes, but listen to the bells ring. The bells ringing this Christmas. Let a joy fill your heart once again as God is ringing the bells that there will be peace on earth. It may not feel like there's peace on earth, but there will be peace on earth. Let there be peace in your heart.

Let your heart sing a joyful song once again, a Christmas carol once again. And Jesus is alive. He's alive. And that should be something we celebrate and we trust in. So today I want you to have the opportunity to either rededicate your life to Jesus, give your life to Jesus, or just make a commitment.

I am going to stand firm with you, God, no matter what. Even when my why's come in life, I'm going to trust you to bring me through. Amen. Amen. Let's believe that today as a church.

Let's lean in in prayer right now. God, Holy Spirit, we ask you to fill this place right now as we pray and we close. And I know there's, there's people here that may be going through different seasons, different things, different. Maybe they're, they're in a great place, but for many, this Christmas just doesn't seem like the type of Christmas they would have expected. God, Holy Spirit, touch their hearts, God.

Touch hearts today, Lord Jesus. Touch us, God. Spirit of the living God who is alive today, touch and change us, Lord. If there's one person today, if you're here today with heads bowed and eyes closed and you want to dedicate or rededicate your life to Jesus, won't you, won't you make it, make that decision right now. He's here and he's alive.

Let's confess your sin to him. Lord, I've been a sinner. I've fallen short of your glory. But I know that you died on the cross, that you love me so much that you gave your life for me. No greater love is there than someone to give their life for a friend.

You gave your life for me. So today I receive you into my heart. Make me a new creation. The old is gone, the new has come. Change my life, Lord.

Has you changed Matthew's life? Has you changed Christina's life? Have you changed so many different people's lives that have these testimonies that we've been sharing the last couple of weeks? God, we give it to you. In Jesus' name.

Amen.