Coming Home Pt. 2 // Returning to God's Presence

Discover how to overcome spiritual homesickness and find your true identity in God through the powerful lessons from Jesus' baptism and temptation. This message explores the deep spiritual longing many Christians experience and provides practical guidance for establishing spiritual anchors in your daily life.Learn why Jesus needed baptism and how His Father's declaration of love became His spiritual GPS location during times of testing. Understand the purpose of wilderness seasons in spiritual growth and how they prepare us for God's calling on our lives. Discover how Jesus overcame Satan's temptations by quoting Scripture and why memorizing God's word is crucial for spiritual victory.Explore the concept of developing a rule of life, inspired by early desert fathers and mothers who organized their entire existence around practices that kept them anchored in God's presence. With Americans spending an average of 49 hours weekly on screens while relying on minimal spiritual input, this message addresses the urgent need for daily spiritual practices.Key topics covered include: spiritual identity in Christ, overcoming temptation through Scripture, the importance of daily Bible reading and prayer, creating space for God's presence, wilderness seasons and spiritual growth, baptism and spiritual commissioning, memorizing Scripture for spiritual warfare, establishing spiritual anchors and practices, finding belonging in God's love, and organizing life around God's priorities.Whether you're struggling with spiritual dryness, feeling overwhelmed by cultural noise, or seeking deeper intimacy with God, this message provides biblical foundations and practical steps for returning to your spiritual home. Learn how to create sustainable spiritual practices that will anchor you in God's love and help you live from your true identity as His beloved child.Perfect for Christians seeking spiritual growth, those in wilderness seasons, believers wanting to deepen their relationship with God, and anyone feeling spiritually homesick or disconnected from their faith.

This sermon was recorded at a Sunday morning gathering at Church of the Lookout in Longmont, Colorado.

Visit our website
Follow us on Facebook
Follow us on Instagram

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the lookin' weekly podcast. Church of the looking presence of the looking mission is Jesus living in his presence. Roman in his family and living on his mission. Visit us the moment and the lookin' the church. You guys, you guys doing what? Alright, it's January 11th. We are off to the summer in 2026. How's it going so far? That good, huh? I'm sorry. Yeah, okay, sweet, great. So we got a lot of work to do apparently this morning. Um, no, it's it's a it's a great time. January is a fantastic time to come and reorient ourselves in a lot of different ways. And if you were with us last week, um, we we started this conversation called coming home. And it's in some ways, one of the invitations to us as we're starting a year together is to return to what matters most. And I think we always have opportunities in our lives, but specifically in our faith, to just take inventory of where we're at and where God is at work in our life and say, God, I want to return back to what you said. I want to return to your word, I want to return to your heart. That's one of the seasons that we're in as a church as we're moving through January. So if you're just coming in for the first time, that's what we're talking about. And it's a good time to reset. I just think anytime we're on the threshold of something new, it's it's a good thing to train ourselves to stop and check in with Jesus. Say, God, am I still going where you're going? Amen? We want to be a church that's going where God is going. Come on. Do I need to start preaching here? We want to be a church. The scripture says that Jesus is the head of his church. I'm not the head of the church. You're not the head of the church. We have one head of the church. It's Jesus Christ. And if you want to know what the church is supposed to become, we better be tuned into the head, the mind of Christ in our lives. And so that's the season we're in. We say it often that our vision is Jesus, is abiding in his presence, growing in his family, living on his mission, so that we can be with him and transforming the world with his awe-inspiring love. So, that being said, let's open the scriptures this morning. If you have your Bible, hopefully you do. Matthew chapter 3. I would even say this. I would love for every single one of us to get in the habit of bringing your physical paper Bible to church. Can you imagine me even recommending that? A physical paper Bible. These things actually exist. And I love being with God in the scriptures. You know the awesome thing about this thing? I can't check my email on this thing. I can't look at my file. I have no followers on this thing. Can you imagine that? I can't, there's no doom scrolling on this thing. Um, it's it's just it's it's it's it's a it's a relationship, a history of communion with God. I want to encourage you guys, fall in love with your Bible again. We're gonna start in Matthew chapter three. One of the things that we've been doing this last year, after we start a sermon and we and I and I read the scriptures, I give it, I've been giving this chance, we're kind of a call and response, which I know is different in our particular kind of church, right? But after I read the scripture, I've been doing this thing where I say, this is the word of the Lord, and and we all respond with this, thanks be to God. The reason we're doing that is because sometimes we have to snap out of the fact that we're not just going through the motions, we're we're responding in gratitude to the word of God. We start the sermons off with reading the scripture just in case nothing I say has anything relevant to your life. At least you heard the one thing that's actually has power to change you from the inside out. We start with the scriptures because that's what you need more than anything I have to say. You need the word of the Lord in your life. And that's what we're gonna be talking a little bit today. So after I read this passage, and and I will pause and say, This is the word of the Lord to acknowledge what we read. And then as you are filled with gratitude, you can say it, you can whisper it, you can shout it. Thanks be to God. Amen. All right, Matthew chapter 3, starting in verse 13. Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John to be baptized by him. And John would have prevented him, saying, I need to be baptized by you. Do you come to me? But Jesus answered him, Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness. Then he consented. And when Jesus was baptized immediately, he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were open to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him. And behold, a voice from heaven said, This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil, and after fasting forty days and forty nights he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, If you are the son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread. But he answered, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, If you are the son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, He will command his angels concerning you, and on their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone. And Jesus said to him, Again, it is written, You shall not put the Lord your God to the test. Again, they the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, All these things I will give to you if you will fall down and worship me. Then Jesus said to him, Be gone, Satan, for it is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve. Then the day then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Amen. So a little history here, January 15th, 2006. Just a few months before I was married, I was ordained as a pastor here at the Lookout. Not the lead pastor, but just a pastor. They're trying to find a way to work me in. We got a photo of this uh this milestone event here. Um, it should come up. I had come out from Indiana. There we go. I'll explain this here, yes. And so I had come out from Indiana. Some of you guys know this. I came out from Indiana, just a small town boy. No, that's not what we're doing. Um came up from Indiana, completed a two-year ministry training internship here at the church at the time, and then they found a way for me to come on staff in the youth ministry um as a youth pastor at that time. And so in 2006, January 15, 2006, about 20 years ago, this week. I didn't realize this until this morning, by the way. Um 2006. They brought me up onto this stage right here. Pastor Wall, the elders, my my parents were there. Um, they laid hands on me and they confirmed the work of God in me. Now, in this particular, these particular photos, it's clear uh I was a different person back then. Um I looked very different. Um and but but but it was a it was a moment for me, it was kind of a milestone moment where the people that mattered to me, the family that was around me, my my actual biological family and the elders here at the church were able to kind of recognize it. It was something that they were able to bless and see me and recognize something happening inside of me, even though I had not quite arrived yet. And so I just want to be clear here. In this moment, when I was coming on in 2006, there he is, this cute little Lou Cumbracht. Um, when I was coming in in 2006, when they blessed me and kind of laid their hands and said, We want to bless you as a pastor here, what they were not saying is you have completely arrived to everything you will ever become, and you've learned it all by now, and so we want to bless that in front of everybody. I mean, quite the contrary. What they were doing is they were creating a moment of saying, we want to, we see God at work inside of you, and we want to take a moment to uh to affirm that so that you have a place to remember that this is something God is doing in your life. And so it's it's it's worth noting though that 20 years ago there was a lot of things I had not, I had, I had no idea what was gonna unfold over the next 20 years. Okay? I had no idea really what it meant meant to lead, really at a high level. I had no idea what it meant to be a husband at this point. I had no idea what it meant to be a father and to father three children. I had no idea what an iPhone was, because it didn't exist. And apps didn't exist yet, at least not applications on your phone. You couldn't press anything. We had these little flip things, you have to flip it open, right? Every time you want to talk to somebody. There was no iPads, there was no QR codes on your seat back pocket, right? There was there was none of that. I had no idea what a pandemic was. I had no idea what a coronavirus was. Uh I certainly had no idea, even like the shadows inside of myself. I didn't know at this point quite all of the places of insecurity where conflict avoidance or the places where I needed to be valued and loved, and how that was gonna show up. Um, I certainly didn't know how dysfunctional the church could become over time. Can we say that out loud? I I said I didn't I didn't know what I was signing up for. And so it's clear um that even looking at a photo like that, you know, what 20 years will do to you in the church, right? And that there should be a warranty for hair loss at some point. Um, but 2006, I had no idea what I was signing up for, so here I am 20 years later, and it's it's manifested in my body, and it's all your fault, okay? It's all your fault. I still think they need to work that into the benefits package for the pastor, some kind of hair loss treatment, all right? That's what happens over time. I had no idea this was coming for me. It's your fault. And so 20 years is a long time. I had no idea what would come. I had I had no idea that 20 years later I'd still be standing here. I'd still be here. Just for a moment, just during worship, I was um, I'm sorry. Just hang with me for a second. I was uh during worship, I was just thanking Jesus. And just join with me for saying, Jesus, I thank you for 20 years of being able to grow a family here and give my life to this church. I thank you for this church family, the church community. I thank you for your faithfulness over the seasons. Just like we were singing, God, I thank you for your goodness. God, I would have never planned in my life the way that you have. But God, for every high and every low. God, I just I return that I returned that to you and worship God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. I still want my hair back, but I'm not gonna hold that against you, God. Um because I always had a reference point. No matter what I would hit, there's this reference point. It's like, I think God still has me here. I think God still set me apart for this kind of purpose. No, it's interesting when we look at a passage like Jesus, you gotta remember with Jesus that by the time we really leave this, read about the substance of his life, he's about 30 years old. Okay? So it's a really fascinating thing that when you read the Gospels, the most interesting parts are apparently his birth. He has a little hiccup when he's 12 years old, right, with his parents, and he kind of stays in the temple. They couldn't find him because he was, you know, he was he was in the temple. But besides that, you don't actually know anything about the guy until he's 30. Most of his life is in obscurity, complete hiddenness, you know, and that's worth noting, by the way, in a culture obsessed with being known and significance and everything being lived in the spotlight, Jesus lived all but about three years uh in complete obscurity. And so even for Jesus, as he was preparing for ministry, there was this moment that we enter into where he actually entered into a milestone, a blessing moment that would serve as a reference point for everything he would do after this point in time. So before going into ministry and being crucified and rising from the dead and ascending into heaven, he himself had to be baptized and baptized into the love of his father, baptized in a communal setting. Yes, he was he is part of the Godhead, he's fully God, but he is fully man. And he lived on this earth in complete dependence on his father and the power of the Holy Spirit, his best friend, right? And and that's the thing about baptism. The significance of baptism is more than an introduction ritual. It's we're when we're baptized, we're we're baptized into a brand new identity. That's what's happening. How many of you in the room have been baptized? Come on, just raise your hand. Come on. And if you have not been baptized, you should get baptized because what happens when you're baptized, you're actually being you're being commissioned into a brand new identity. When you go underwater, whoever you were before, whatever labels, beliefs, narratives, and scripts that you have been holding your entire life, when you come out of that water, you're baptized literally into the name of the Father and the name of the Son and this, you know, and in the name of the Holy Spirit. In this particular uh scenario with Jesus, he's he he rises out of the water. And the way that the scriptures are written is as his head breaks the surface of the water, it's it's it's akin to a new birth. It's like being born again. And as he comes in, he's not he doesn't come into a void, he doesn't just come into ministry, he comes into the voice of his father and the presence of the Holy Spirit. And and it was this audible voice that others were able to hear. This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased. This is my blessed son. He is he is blessed, and I take delight in him. And it says that the Holy Spirit, like a dove, just came and rests on him. And it was like all of the delight in heaven comes and marks him in this very moment. It's wild to think that even Jesus needed to be affirmed by his father. Even Jesus needed that. He needed, even Jesus needed the power of the Holy Spirit. And in a lot of ways, this moment became this marking moment, I believe, even for Jesus. That as he heard the voice of his father and as he received the resting of the Holy Spirit, this became the pinpoint, the GB, the GPS geolocation pinpoint of home. This is the moment, this is what home feels like. Right? Have you ever experienced home without actually being at home? Have you ever traveled and you experienced a little bit of home without actually being home? Because you have a reference point for what home actually feels like. And it's probably gonna feel a lot different for all of us. All of us have a reference point for what it feels like to be home. I was just in California for a couple days this week, and I just took notice of Mom. I was catching up with a friend, and he was showing me photos of his family, and he showed me photos of his little daughter, and how she was just smiling and bouncing around and dancing and the whole thing. And and I I immediately just was reminded of my own daughter and just the feeling of when I'm with my daughter at home and the way that she looks at me and the way she she's excited to see me. And I just I felt like it was like home away from home. We all have these moments of what what the reference point for home, all of us have some kind of deeply ingrained pinpoint at the core of our being of what it feels like to be home. And for Jesus, home was to be to live every moment in the belovedness of the Father and in the accompaniment of the Holy Spirit. And it's it's something that we need, it's something that even Jesus need because when we go to new places, we need to remember who we are and who we're not. And I think for all of us, the the importance of our baptismal identity, the importance of encounter with God that marks us and creates a high water mark for a moment is important because there are times and seasons where we fall short or we fall away. We stray away, we wander, and in those moments we actually become homesick because we remember what it felt like to be tucked in right into the lap of the Father in heaven. And we have a return, we have a center point that we can return to of mercy and grace and acceptance for who we are. And so we all need this anchor point. Jesus' anchor point was in the Father, which is important because immediately after this we see this unbelievable contrast as he as home was solidified, his roots go in, this is who you are, this is what you're made for. It says, I mean, while while while his robe was still dripping in the waters of the Jordan River, it says the Spirit drove him out into the wilderness. So it's one of those passages that most of us feel like we could do without this particular piece. At least in our lives, we feel like we could do without. Let's just go straight from the Jordan, straight into ministry. Let's just go straight into the power stuff. It's like, no, that's not God's plan for Jesus, and it's not God's plan for us. He has to lead us into wilderness times. And the Spirit, it was the Holy Spirit that led him out into the wilderness to fast for 40 days and 40 nights in order to be tempted by the devil. Because anytime God does something in us that needs to be galvanized from the inside out. Anytime God speaks something over us, the only way to test its purity and its fortitude is to lead us into places where the opposite can be presented to us and to see how deeply rooted our belief in the words of the Father are. This is true for Jesus, and it's true for all of us. So he had to go to a place, the wilderness, which in this particular case, we don't, I have never been to the wilderness in Israel, but I'm imagining it was a quiet, it was a vulnerable space. There is no community there. There's no podcast, there's no YouTube, there's no, you know, there's no Yahtzee, there's no board games, there's not, I mean, there's just like when you think about what are you doing with your time, it was it was an extended amount of stripping away of everything that he had grown up with for the first 30 years. And it was is a time where we would see that the devil would come to him and start to challenge the very thing that his father had said to him and present to him alternative ways to live into identity. So isn't it wild that even Satan comes and starts to quote scripture to Jesus? It's an unbelievable thing. And Jesus has nothing else, he has no other reference way except the scripture that was hidden inside of his heart. And so it was this battle of scripture. It's this wild scenario because Satan says, You have heard it said, and and Jesus says, Yes, but it is written. And Satan would say, you know, listen, if you are the Son of God, then do something for yourself. Turn these, turn these stones into bread. Well, you don't need to be hungry. God wouldn't want that for you. But Jesus knew in the core of what he who he is, he knew what he was made for. He's like, no, there's something deeper that I'm made for. And I know you're quoting me scripture, but I I know who I am, I know what God says about me, and I know this that man cannot live by bread alone. But there's a deeper substance, sustenance that we man cannot live by bread alone, but by fruit but from every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. And Jesus says, There is something deeper I am fed by. And he wasn't looking up, he didn't. Have a quick reference on his phone of like, where was that scripture again? No, it was hidden in his heart. How many of you have ever been through a wilderness experience? Okay. Okay. Now, when I say wilderness, we could be talking literal. This is Colorado. But like more figuratively, wilderness experience is kind of a language, it's a placeholder that we use to talk about seasons of solitude, seasons of quiet, seasons where things feel a little bit more stripped back. If maybe you've been through wilderness, maybe you are in a wilderness. But I guarantee you, you are headed towards a wilderness at some point in time. And we live most of our lives trying to avoid the wilderness and avoid the desert. That's where we start out, like, no, that doesn't feel good. That feels horrible. That feels terrible. That doesn't feel like God. And so we we try to avoid those things. But then we realize that in the wilderness, God does the deepest work he will ever do in our lives to convince us of his love for us. And he can't do it in any other way. I shouldn't say he can't. But when you read through the narrative of the scripture, the desert is such a special place to the heart of God. Even in the book of Hosea, as God is speaking to his people Israel, he says, Therefore, I will allure her to the deserts, and there I will speak tenderly to her. Sometimes God has to lead us into wilderness places because it's the only place we can re-attune to what his voice actually sounds like again. And it's a place of vulnerability. But listen, for all of us here in the church, this is important that even if you're not in the wilderness, we're invited to sometimes create our own wilderness. We're invited to go away and to be with Jesus. We're invited into seasons to tune ourselves to the heart of God again. We need these times where things are stripped away so that we can practice being beloved and blessed. That's where we practice being beloved. It's way easy to practice the love of God when you're at Disneyland, right? When you're on the beach in Cancun or wherever. Man, oh, I'm so loved by God. God, you're so good. You're so faithful. This is great. Can you get me one more of those, please? Thank you. How easy is it? But it doesn't actually get to the core of our being until we go through an unideal circumstance where belovedness can be tested. Where we go through a desert or a wilderness. Where all everything that we think is true is being challenged at its core. And it's at that point we need a reference point for what home is. And for Jesus, it was home, his way back home was through the scriptures, was remembering the very word of God. And so Jesus, he has it memorized, he recalls the scriptures in key moments. He he had been given his entire life to feasting on the scriptures and the story of God. And in the same way, for believers, for us as believers, followers of Jesus, if we think that we can live the Christian life without hiding the Word of God deep in our hearts, we are sorely mistaken. We are mistaken, especially in the day in which we live. And like Jesus, we must have a daily rhythm. We must have a continual, like a lifestyle of feasting on the word, but not only just reading the word, but actually memorizing the scripture. How many, how much time have you given to memorizing the scripture? See, we what's interesting is we don't need to do that because we can always recall it at a moment's moments. There's always you can always search it up, right? If you can't remember that one scripture, oh this let's just chat GPT that real quick. Give me all the scriptures on this topic. Oh, yeah, that's the one, right? Jesus didn't have that. There's no recalling anywhere. It was, if you don't know it, then you don't know it. And it's amazing because when we when we look into scriptures, even one of the roles of the Holy Spirit in our life, he's a comforter, he's a counselor, he's an advocate, he's a lot of things, he's a convictor of sin. But one of the things that the Holy Spirit is given to us for is to remind us of everything that Jesus said and taught. You know that? And Mary Jean Powers always said that. Right? You can't recall things that you're not hiding into your heart. And so the Holy Spirit is there to remind us of what Jesus said and what he taught. But our responsibility is being the kind of people who are who were actually learning to feast on the scriptures. And feasting and fast, feasting on the scriptures even while we fast with our bodies is one of the best ways to do that. To remember that every word that we live on, every word that comes from the mouth of God. Why does all that matter? Because we all go through times and seasons where we walk through wilderness, we we stray away from home, and we need something that anchors us into the reference point of what the word of God sounds like, what the voice of God sounds like. So in the Midwest, there's parts of the Midwest where the blizzards get really bad in the winter. And I and I heard this, by the way, I didn't grow up on a farm. I know you think I did, um, because I'm so rugged and good, good, just well-skilled in all kinds of things. Um, it's a bad joke. Um in the in the Midwest, there's parts, the blizzards are so bad in the winter that a lot of the times the farmers have to tie a rope from their home all the way to their barn across their property. Because what happens is when they go out to feed the livestock or whatever it is, on their way back, if they don't they don't have bearings on where they're going, sometimes the blizzard, the snow is so deep and it's so blinding that they start headed in the wrong direction. But what happens is they tie this rope from their home to the barn so that when the blizzard comes, they have something to hold on to that even if I can't see, I know the way back home. I know the way back home. Even when I can't see, if I just follow this rope, it's gonna take me back home. Do you guys realize that's why the scriptures have been given to us? Because you cannot see every day of your life. We are living in a blizzard. Do you guys know that? You are living in a blizzard, most of you don't even know it. You feel it, but you might not even know the significance of it. Do you guys realize, even statistically, how much time that we live, and I don't want to go on another rant about technology, but like statistically, the global screen time for us, the average American, spends seven hours a day looking at a screen. Seven hours a day, about 49 hours a week. Okay? So if you're relying on me and then the how if you're relying on a killer Sunday morning message to get you through the week, oh God. Oh Lord. Oh Jesus, help us. If you're relying on somebody that speaks for half an hour once a week to kind of get through in the 49 hours that you're spending just being bathed and baptized in Fox News and CNN and whatever podcast and YouTuber influencer, Instagram, and that real and that real, dude, we are lost. If we're relying on that, which is why we need, all of us, we need a rope that pulls us back every day of our lives, something that leads us back home. The only thing that's gonna lead you back home is the word of God and the presence of God and habits that anchor you into the lived experience of the presence of God every day of your life, and you give yourself and you organize your life around the lived presence of God. Anyone with me here? Without that, we will be swept away. And many of us just we live, we just every day we're tossed to and fro. That's what it says in Ephesians 4 that like children, oftentimes we're tossed to and fro in all the winds and waves of doctrine. That's what it says, that's what Paul says in Ephesians. We're just tossed back and forth. But there is such a thing as a way of life where we're tethered to what matters most. We're tethered to the word of God, we're tethered to prayer, we're tethered to time with the one who changes this from the inside out. So in the fourth century, there is a whole group of Christians known as the desert mothers and fathers. It's a whole group of Christians that outside of Egypt, they were called the Coptic Christians, and they outside of Egypt, they actually fled to the desert as a way of life because the city had become so corrupt, and even the church at that time had become so corrupt that in order to preserve their lives before God, they had to go out into the desert surrounding the city and develop their own communities and monasteries and kind of have just a whole way of life that they gave themselves to. And it wasn't because they thought they were better than anybody else and we're so holy, we're gonna go outside of the city because you guys are, but it was so intense that the only way for them to live preserved unto the purposes of God was to go outside of the city. And they they began to live in uh what the ancient, yeah, the historic Christians would be called a rule of life. Not necessarily rules for life, but a rule of life. Basically, we're gonna give ourselves to a way of life that keeps us anchored in the love of God. It's like that rope that pulls us back. They would stop multiple times a day for prayer just to call attention back to their heart. They gave themselves to simplicity, to fasting, to caring for the poor and the marginalized. People, it was so pure and so holy. It was such a revival kind of atmosphere that people would leave the city to come to the desert just to sit with the desert mothers and fathers because they were living from the overflow of a heart preserved for Jesus. Don't you kind of want that? And they were kind of showing us a way. It wasn't just rigid religious duty, but they said if we don't live into a rule of life or a way of designing our life around the love of God, then we don't stand a chance if we live in the city. And the thing is, all of us live with a rule of life, all of us live hanging on to something. It's just we have to decide what it's based on. Whether we're living through a desert or walking through a blizzard or withstanding an overstimulating world, we have to have habits that keep us rooted, anchored, and at home in the presence of God, lest we be swept away. When you cannot see, and when you cannot hear, you need a home to return to. And I say all that because as we move into the year, my encouragement as your pastor, my encouragement is that we all have steps to take to design our very lives around the habits and the practices that guard a life with God. A time every day in the scriptures, a time in prayer, seeking and listening, time in silence, a time away from the screens and preserves for his voice. See, Moses got this right when he was invited to lead the people into the promised land. He never made it, but as the Lord was inviting him in, the cry of Moses' heart in Exodus chapter 33, God says to Moses, He says, My presence will go with you and I will give you rest. And Moses said back to him, If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. My prayer this year is that all of us were ruined for any imagination of trying to plow through this year without the presence of God. And that God actually stirs up a new hunger again to say, God, I will do whatever it takes to live every day from your very presence and your very word, because I don't want to go up from here. I don't want to go move forward if you're not gonna go with me. I just want to ask us here today is that the cry of your heart? And maybe some of you are coming in here, and this is all kind of new, and you haven't quite heard this. I'm just saying, there's an invitation before you. It's possible to live in friendship with God every day of your life. And that happens through Jesus. Jesus made a way for you to live in friendship with him. He's not an idea, he's not way off there. God has given you his very self and he's given you his life. And that's why Jesus went to the cross to take care of everything wrong we've done, past, present, and future, that we might find life and salvation in him. All you have to do is say yes to Jesus. And I invite you to do that today. If you haven't done that, you need to say yes to Jesus because it's the only place where life is. It's our bread, it's our nourishment, it's our strength, it's salvation. And if you need a way out of living into destructive high lifestyles or a way out of sin that is trapping you, if you need to know that you are the beloved of God, say yes to Jesus, he will show you the way to the home that you were made for. That is for you today. And it's not for somebody else, it's for you. He knows you by name. Say yes to Jesus today. And as you say yes to Jesus, as you are baptized into his name, I want to encourage you this year, if you have not yet made a daily habit of meeting God every day of your life, maybe even multiple times a day, to be in the scriptures, to be in prayer, to clear your schedule, design your life around him, clear even a day a week for Sabbath keeping where it's just delight and worship and remembering that you are made in the image and likeness of God. You were made for a purpose that isn't just productivity on this earth. It's made for an eternal purpose of living in delightful communion with Him. That's what you're made for. Design your life around the things that will bring you home again. And listen, today is a special day because tomorrow, we've many of you guys know we're inviting you to join us for 21 days of kind of a return home, a coming home. We're calling it 21 days of fasting and prayer, which some of you that's a totally new concept. Some of you do this very regularly, others, it might be a totally new concept, but any time that we set aside specific time to say, God, I want to learn to hunger for you again, and I'm gonna remove things from my life to maybe stir up hunger for you because I want to live in your presence. I want to live in the things that matter to your heart. God meets us in unbelievable ways. I can just mark time by by times where I've um I've fasted and prayed, and what it's what it's done is it's just it's just it's it's separated this lifestyle of convenience and comfort in my life. And then it's it's retuned me to the voice of God. And so a couple things, you see this on the screen in front of you. If you have not yet joined us, if you want to join, there's this is not a high pressure thing. I'm just saying, some of you are ready to make 2026 not the same as 2025. Some of you have been way too comfortable for way too long. And things are generally okay and your faith and you're kind of going through the motions, I'm telling you, if if Christianity is at its best when we are on edge. Christianity is at its best when we're just a little uncomfortable. And if you have been living just in comfort and convenience and you want to know what is the to retune yourself to the life that God has for you, a life of sacrifice and service and tuning to his presence. I'm saying you should you should be a part. If that's not something you need, if you're good, then awesome. But listen, if you want to be a part, what we're doing is you can you can go to this QR code or on that seat back in front of you, join the 21 days. We will email you a prayer guide that we created for the next 21 days. If it serves you, let it serve you. If you want to do your own thing, that's great too. We have a few different ways you can actually come and be a part of communal prayer for the next few weeks. Number one, Sunday mornings at night at 8:30, every Sunday morning, we meet on the third floor in our prayer room. If you want to come and join others for prayer even before we come into a Sunday morning service, come and do it. There's nothing like praying with others and just being in the presence of God together. Additionally, Wednesdays at noon, we'll be joining together again for the next few weeks, every Wednesday at noon, and then uh Tuesday evening, starting this Tuesday, if you want to come and be with other believers, 6 30 p.m. in the theater, there's gonna be a group of believers. We don't know how many, but guess what? The scripture says, whenever two or three gather in my name, there I will be. There is a promise that when we come together, God reserves a special part of his presence when we come together in prayer. And guys, listen, I think this is gonna be an exciting time. I am full of expectancy myself just because I've seen this at work in my life. And listen, if you've never tried to fast before, listen, don't get crazy. Okay? It's okay to take steps into that. If you want to try to fast food, not fast food, but but maybe fast food too. Yeah, fast, fast food. Um uh you don't have to do a Jesus fast to prove anything to God. It's not about proving anything into Him, it's about stirring up hunger in our hearts to feast on the Word of God. Okay? So that might just be eliminating certain kinds of food groups like sugar, alcohol, um, processed food, uh, that kind of thing. It could be a meal a day. It could be several days of water only. Um you you decide between you and God. If you don't want to do food, there's other things that we need to restrict ourselves from, like what we consume on a daily basis. Maybe it's certain kinds of books or certain kinds of shows or movies or news intake or social media, that kind of stuff is good too. But I just want to encourage you, ask the Lord where he's inviting you to re just to change things up for 21 days, that you might free up time to come to him in communion and to pray, just to be before him and in the scriptures and just see what would happen. And I just think I think God's gonna speak to us. I just believe that God wants to speak to you individually and he wants to speak to us as a church, okay? Are you guys with me on that? So this morning, I invite you. If you haven't yet done that, you can get email a prayer guide. We have printed prayer guides out in the theater, or I'm not in the theater, in the in the foyer. Um we have print if you if you don't want to go out to the you know QR code thing, that's fine. Go get a printed guide out in the foyer. Join us for this time. And here's what we're gonna do. I'm gonna have the worship team come up. And uh and we're gonna sing together as we kind of end this morning. And uh yes, love the little children. We get to come before Jesus as little children, receiving every good gift that he has for us. And this morning, let's just do this, let's stand together. And just as a kind of a first moment, coming into this next 21 days, we're gonna set aside this time to say, Jesus, your presence matters to us, and we're willing to do what it takes to be with you. We're gonna sing this song together as just a communal way of entering into. Can you just can we be reminded together that we're made for his presence? You were made to know him and to be known by him. And so, God, today, as we end this service today, as we end this time today, God, just hear the cry of our hearts. All of us, God, as we even embark on this little 21-day journey, God, I thank you to speak to us. I thank you to minister to us, and I thank you to invite us back home, Lord God. No, even in this room, God, as some of us feel like we're far from home, I thank you, God, that you're pulling us back and that you love us so much. We love you too, God. To hear the song of our heart today. Fiona has a word of encouragement for us, especially for those of us who are in desert seasons. You want to share that, Fiona?

SPEAKER_00 43:27

Okay. Um I know God has been talking to me about many of us being in desert seasons. My husband and I have been in wilderness and desert times, and he lost his job about five months ago, and a couple of days later, my my my wish. I wish we'd come back to part time, and instead of doing time, we decided in our desert time. We wanted to rejoice. He wants to bring us into something later. And I know all that Luke has shared with us today. I have been reading in Exodus 14, where the children of Israel are in the desert, and Pharaoh, as he approached them, they looked up. But they looked up and they saw their enemies. And I want to encourage each of you that if you're looking down and thinking of your hard times, whatever that might be, that you don't just look up and see the enemy, but you look up and you see God because He has got great things for us. And Moses said to the people of Israel, he said, Be still and don't be afraid and to stand firm. How many of us know it's hard to stand firm when things are coming against us? And but we've got to keep looking up and keep our eyes on God. And then the um then the angel of the Lord, it goes on, and the angel of the Lord, God, who had been traveling in front of the children of Israel and leading them, God leads us, and again with his word, he leads us. The angel of the Lord then withdrew and he went behind them. So many of us we think, God, we need to move forward, where are you? And he's going, I'm going behind you. I've got your back, I'm protecting you. And and he also, so um, throughout the night, put that the cloud brought light to the children of Israel, which God is our light, and darkness was on the enemy, the darkness, the negative things, the tough things in our lives. And with that, then through the whole night, the children of Israel were in light and they crossed over. And I know for our situation and for your situation, God's going to lead you forward. He you may not see him in front of you, but he's behind you, coaxing you on. But your choice is in the desert. Simon and I had we chose that we were going to rejoice and give praise and worship and adoration to God in the desert. And that is our choice today, church. Yeah, and that's not easy, I know. Um, but it's an invitation to God, as in the voice of one calling. What Luke was that scripture he was reading, the beginning of that chapter is Isaiah, the voice of one calling in the desert, prepare the way of the Lord. I know that was John the Baptist before, that was Isaiah prophesying about John the Baptist and Jesus, but another way to look at it is the voice of one calling, your voice calling, in the desert, prepare the way of the Lord.

SPEAKER_01 47:17

Amen.

SPEAKER_00 47:18

So, what are you going to do in your desert? Come through with God, He has got a way for you, He's opening up, He's and you know, my husband and I, we feel God very strongly has spoken to us about moving to be with our daughter in California. The impossible, you know, nice price, prices have gone, things have gone a bit crazy. But God, but God, but God, He's the God of miracles, and either we give Him glory and live by faith, or we look up and see the enemy and live in fear. There's only two ways God's way or the enemy. What are you gonna do? I challenge you today. Live by faith and glorify God. He's got good things for all of us.

SPEAKER_01 48:04

Come on. All right, all right. We need we need like a we need a full-blooded Irish prayer to go with it. Alright? Just bring it, alright? All right, Jesus.

SPEAKER_00 48:15

Thank you, God. Thank you, Jesus, thank you, thank you, thank you, Jesus. God, we just thank you that you are the God of the impossible. You are the God that nothing is too hard for. Whether it's in our lack, whether it's in our loneliness, whatever it is, you are the mighty God where nothing, nothing, nothing is impossible for you. And so, God, we want to stand firm. Stand firm in you, stand firm in the word, the word that is written on our heart. Amen.

unknown 48:53

Amen.

SPEAKER_00 48:53

And we want to believe and to know you, Father. We just ask, Lord, that you take our hands and you lead us through. Some of us might need to be picked up, God, by you and held and carried through. But we say, Here we are, God.

SPEAKER_01 49:08

Here we are.

SPEAKER_00 49:08

Here we are. And I know the desert is to build our character, to build our faith, to help us to grow in you. So here we are, God. Do with us what you want us to do. But God, we all can say together, we know that our Redeemer lives. We know that you live. We know that you've got something greater for us as you bring us through the desert. So we say, thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. I just pray each of us say, Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, God, thank you for our lives, thank you for our situation, thank you that you've got us. Thank you, God, you never leave us nor forsake us. Your word says to rejoice in the Lord always, and if you did not get that church again, I say rejoice. And that is not easy. So thank you, Jesus, that you have got us. Thank you, thank you, thank you for your love, your grace, your mercy, and your faithfulness. He's a great, good father.

SPEAKER_01 50:05

Come on, everybody said. Amen. Hey guys, we it's gonna be an exciting few weeks. Stay engaged, all right? Let's do this together. Hey, listen, before we end today, a couple things. Number one, if you are here and you need prayer, there's gonna be a ministry team, our prayer team, they're gonna have a purple badge. They're gonna be on the sides of the room. If you see anybody with a purple badge, go get prayer. If you need healing in your body or just someone to pray with, these are people you can trust. They would love to meet you and pray with you, encourage you. Second thing here, we have one of our seniors that graduated is headed off to YWM. Uh, Kitty Dipper over here. She is heading up, she's been preparing, she's been fundraising. We want to take a time to bless her. So if you want to come pray for Kitty after the service, come down here on the side, and we want to send her out as a church. All right, for the rest of you, if you're new here, I would love to meet you in the back and get to know you. Um, you can go get your kids, but we love you guys, bless you, and have an amazing day. Let's go.