Dwell

The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and they will call him Emmanuel, which means God with us. There will be no more gloom for those who were in distress. The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness, a light has dawned. For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting father, prince of peace. Of the greatness of his government and peace, there will be no end. He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.

I love Advent; it is such a great way to focus. And every week we light one candle, we read a scripture just to remind us that the best is yet to come. The thing we've all been waiting for, the thing the world was waiting for is about to happen. And that's what Advent is all about, that sense of anticipation. Well, good morning, my name is Valerie. I'm one of the pastors here on staff at Twin Lakes Church. As Adrian said, we're so glad you're with us today. I hope you had a great Thanksgiving. I was able to wing my way up to Oregon to see my dad and my sister, which was very fun to hang out with them. It has not always been fun for me to hang out with my sister. So one of the benefits of getting older is that I can now say I like to hang out with my sister. It's remarkable how wonderful she's become in the last ten years or so.

I am thrilled to be kicking off our Advent series this morning. And what I'm going to do today is just a quick flyover of the passage that Mark and Renee will be deep diving into for the next three weeks of Advent. And that's John 1:1–14. So if you have your Bible with you, you can go ahead and get your Bible open to John chapter 1. Pull out your sermon notes. As some of you know, about 18 months ago, I had the privilege of representing everybody in this room and heading over to Jordan to see the refugee crisis firsthand. Because I really care about this, this church really cares about this, and we wanted to find out how we could be more involved in that. Well, two weeks ago, I returned from another trip to Jordan. And this time, I got to go with seven other folks from Twin Lakes Church, which made it all the better, let me tell you. It was just an amazing time together.

In that seven was our outreach pastor, Paul Spurlock, as well. And you see Paul up here sometimes. He's the crazier of the Spurlock brothers. That's how you identify him. He's also the older. He's not here today, so I can say that. Much older than Mark. Mark would want me to tell you that, by the way. But if you've ever had the chance to travel with Paul Spurlock on an outreach trip, it's an experience, let me tell you. And if you do get to do that, let me just assure you there will be hilarity, there will be hijinks, and all kinds of things like this will ensue.

Now you may wonder, well, Val, why do you even go to Jordan? Why don't we just send money? Isn't money really what they need the most over there? And in truth, they do need money. There's no doubt about it. But you know what? There's something so powerful in being present. They need people to come and look them in the eye, and hear their stories, and know that they've been heard. There's so much power in being present. So we don't just send money; we go too, because we want to be present. We want to be there. We want to be with people. And by the way, this church, since I returned from the last trip to Jordan in June of last year, without us even asking you, you have been so insanely generous as a church. You've given over $40,000 to refugee causes in Jordan, just as a church and a community. And so the stories you're going to hear me tell today are really stories that you're a part of, because it's your generosity that's fueling some of the things that we've been able to do over in Jordan.

All right, let's dive into John chapter 1, and I want you just to soak in these words as I read them aloud for you. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him, all things were made. Without him, nothing was made that has been made. And in him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him, all might believe. He himself was not the light. He came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet, to all who did receive him, to those who believed on his name, he gave the right to become children of God, children born not of natural descent nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God. The word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son who came from the Father, full of grace and full of truth.

Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, Jesus, light of the world, we ask that you would guide us today as we study your word. Soften our hearts to hear your voice. Please, Lord, we ask that you would light our way. The same Spirit who illumined the Scriptures for John, may they illumine our hearts today, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

So here in John 1, we basically have one of the most theologically rich passages in the entire Bible. And in the first three verses of this chapter, we see some of the most important verses in the Bible about the deity of Jesus. If you ever have a question about, "Was Jesus God?" these are your verses as a go-to right there. And in those first three verses, we can learn that, number one, Jesus is eternal, and so I need to be humble. You can write that down in your notes. Jesus is eternal, and I need to be humble. I need to have some humility about my place in all this. We need to be humble. And when I say be humble, I'm not talking about beat yourself up and have an internal dialogue that says, "I'm stupid. I'm bad. I'm nothing. I can't do anything." What I'm saying is have a little perspective about your place. Have a little perspective about your place. And if you're struggling with perspective, those first two verses remind us, "In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God." This is Jesus. The Word was God. And in case you missed it, He was in the beginning with God.

If you've been around Twin Lakes for any amount of time, you probably remember this little exercise that Renee has us do sometimes where we point up and say, "God," point to ourselves and say, "Not." That is essentially what these two verses are saying. God, not. That is perspective, ladies and gentlemen. Jesus is eternal. There are no vacancies in the Trinity so that we don't have to worry about that. And what that leaves for the rest of us is level ground at the foot of the cross. We all stand on level ground at the foot of the cross. And when you go to a place like Jordan, the temptation as you're going over there is to think, "Oh, we're going over to help. We're the people who can help. These are the people who need help." The temptation is to classify someone as the other. Those are the refugees. I don't know how they got in that situation, but I'm not in that situation. But what you find when you sit with the refugees, when you're present with the refugees, is that we're so similar. We have different life stories, but there are some core things that are just so similar.

Let me show you a picture of this very sweet couple that I met on the first night that I was there in Jordan and we were visiting. This amazing group, that's Abby on the far side. I don't point well. That's Abby over there. This couple in the middle are from Baghdad. And they both have master's degrees. She's a mechanical engineer. He's an industrial designer. Amazing people, both believers when they lived in Iraq. And as things heated up with ISIS, their jobs got sketchy. They started getting harassed at work. They started getting threatened at work. And they decided it was time to leave because at the minimum, if they were lucky, they were just going to lose their jobs. But the husband particularly was starting to get physical threats of violence that were getting very strong. And so they decided they better leave and they got out of Dodge. They went to Jordan, which is where literally millions of refugees have found refuge right now in Jordan. And they now attend the church that our partners, Bob and Suzanne Robertson, have helped with for decades. And that's, I met them in their home. They told me their story. Such an amazing couple. They felt like people that I know. I know mechanical engineers here in Santa Cruz. And they told us some hair-raising things about family and things in Baghdad. And they were pretty stoic when they were explaining all of this to me. And then I asked them when I was getting ready to leave, "How can we pray for you?" And she started to tear up. And it wasn't because she was afraid. And it wasn't because she didn't want to be a refugee. She started to tear up because she wants a baby. And she hasn't been able to have a baby. And that felt so normal. It felt so familiar. It didn't feel other. It felt like people that I know right here in the States.

Or take a look at this man, Haitham and his family. Just an amazing story. He's Iraqi as well. He was from Mosul. You notice these names are not good places to be from. Baghdad, Mosul, things like that. He was extremely successful. I'm talking a multiple, multiple, multiple millionaire here. He told us that in Iraq they had six servants. A house so large it needed six servants. He flew all over the world conducting his business. He was a good Iraqi. He didn't think anything would ever happen to him. He wasn't a believer. He was kind of an agnostic Muslim and just feeling like, I'm going to be fine. Nothing's going to happen to me. I'm just kind of quietly here doing my thing. I've got my wealth. I've got my family. I've got my house. I've got my servants. And it literally all fell apart in a day for this guy. His home was seized. His bank accounts were seized. They had one car. They had multiple cars before this. But they managed to get out to Jordan in the one car that they had. They escaped with their lives. And now they live in a house that's falling apart. When we went to their home, the wife cooked dinner for us. It was an amazing meal. She cooked it in a kitchen that doesn't even feel like it was as wide as the stretch of my arms. And by the way, if you go on a Jordan outreach trip ever, this is not a weight loss trip. There is some seriously, epically good food over there in Jordan. This woman cooked us this amazing meal in this house that was falling apart. And Haitham told us when we were there that in Jordan, their lives are so much better. Even though they're refugees, they've lost everything. They have nothing. He just works odd jobs to earn money for the family now. Their life is better because number one, they found Jesus. They found Jesus there. And number two, he's found his family again. He said when they lived in Iraq, he was too busy for his family. They didn't have time to be together. And so in Jordan, they found that again. They found perspective. And I'm telling you, they are not the other over there. We are not higher. They are not lower. The ground is level at the foot of the cross. And no matter where we live, that is where we all stand, at the foot of the cross together. In the face of our eternal Savior, we absolutely need to be humble. God, not. Simple exercise for you to practice once a day. It'll be helpful for everybody. God, not.

And second, we see in this passage that Jesus' presence with us means that Jesus is the light of the world. So I can be hopeful. Jesus is the light of the world. So there's hope. There's hope for us in this darkness. In verses 4 and 5, it said, "In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." Jesus did not come into this world just to put a lantern down at the end towards heaven and say, walk this way. Just come along here. He came to give us light and life, abundant, abundant life. And it's a light that overpowers darkness. And we need to know that truth today. This is a light that overpowers darkness. And it can feel sometimes like you've got to be kidding, Val. There's no way that there's a light that overpowers darkness. But I am telling you, even if it is just the tiniest pinhole of light that you can see, the darkness cannot be overcome. The darkness will not win. It will not last. That's the promise of Christmas. The darkness will not last.

Some of the folks that I met over in Jordan were so hopeful in the face of things that would have just crushed me, in the face of things that I often would go back to the hotel and feel crushed by. And I was just visiting. One of the guys we met who was on the front lines every single day serving was a guy named Rami. Rami is the tall guy in this photo. And one of the things he said on our last day there in devotions just struck me. He said, you know what? We are not afraid. We are not overwhelmed by the need. And I thought, what? Are you crazy? What I have called this ever since I went there the first time is an abyss of need. There is literally no bottom to the amount of need that there is over there right now. How could Rami not be overwhelmed? How could he not be afraid of the need? Well, he's not afraid because he knows that God is the one who goes before him, that God is the one who's behind him, that God is the one who's providing the resources through all kinds of ways, including places like Twin Lakes Church. And he knows that the darkness does not win. And so he's hopeful. And so he's not afraid.

One of the most difficult homes that I went into and I went into with Marty and Shelley, who are right down there, who were also on the trip with us, was the home of a couple who had two disabled children. And I didn't even take a picture of this family because it just-- it was so dark. It just wouldn't have felt right to whip out my phone and go, hey, can we take a photo? These kids were severely disabled. The actual-- the only photo I do have is one I think Shelley took as we were walking down the alley towards their house. And we walked into the home. Their 11-year-old daughter is laying on a mat on the floor, totally non-communicative, can't walk. And she was holding their seven-year-old son, who was also totally non-communicative, cannot walk. And he was really agitated because new people had come into the scene. And there we sat. And I just couldn't-- I didn't even know what to say to them. They were so patient and so loving with their children. And the dad, who had been a welder back in Iraq, had fashioned kind of a porch swing inside their house because that was something that the kids could do. That repetitive motion really helped them. And it calmed them. And so here they were in this house with mats on the floor, a little swing set, I guess you could call it, that the dad had lovingly put together. We brought them clothes. We brought them food. We bought them a heater. And as we were talking with them, one photo that he did show me that I do have is a picture I took of his phone. And he showed me this photo. He wanted me to see-- this is his kitchen after ISIS looted it. And what often happens for these refugees is that people who stay behind, people who are left in those cities will-- the friends will check on the homes of the other people because they're wondering, could we go back maybe? Is it possible that we could go back? Well, ISIS got a hold of his house, looted everything, and there's no hope that they'll go back. And I don't know where they'll end up. It can look really, really dark. But there's always those pinholes of light. There's always those little swing sets that are there, those little bits of light that you can see the darkness cannot take over the light.

There's this woman who we met also while we were there, just an amazing woman. She's 29 years old. She not only escaped ISIS, she escaped an abusive husband. She has three children. Her house was one of the roughest houses that we went into, actually. Her kitchen was literally not even as big as my arm span. It was just a little tiny path down the middle. You can see she has a refrigerator. She has that little washing machine right there that we found out was broken. And this is a woman with three kids. And this is a universal truth. Three kids, no washing machine, no good. Universal truth. And so thanks to the generosity of some folks in our church, we were able to tell her, you know what? We're going to buy you a washing machine. So we not only brought clothes for them, and we brought food. This is her youngest child getting some clothes that we had found for him. And we brought food, and we brought a heater for them as they go into the winter season. But we literally left her home, went to an appliance store, made a deal with that guy, bought a washing machine, and she got it delivered that night. Because there is light. There is hope. Because Jesus came to Earth. The darkness will not last.

Here's another single mom that we sat with. An amazing woman. Both of these women were converts from Islam to Christianity. This woman has four daughters, three of whom are now in London with her husband, who was able to get out. But he left her and abandoned her in Jordan with her youngest daughter because she had not given him a son. And he had no interest in her anymore because of physical problems. She's not ever going to be able to have kids again. So there she is. She's in a very vulnerable situation. We got out of the car in her neighborhood. And it was a sketchy neighborhood, which is saying something based on where we had been. And we got out of the car, and people were yelling at her. This man was yelling at her because she has no one to protect her. And I don't know what they were saying, but the guy we were with went at him. And it's all in Arabic, and so it sounds exceedingly dramatic when you're listening to it. But he was defending her. And we went into her home, and we sat on the floor. I think she had two plastic chairs there. Her little girl was sleeping on a mat off to the side. And what did this woman's talk turn to? It did not turn to pity. It did not turn to woe is me. She had a question. She'd been reading in Jeremiah 25. And she wanted to ask Paul, our outreach pastor, explain this to me. And I'm thinking, Jeremiah, come on. Like you're in a chaotic, dire, straight situation here. Go to Philippians. Go to Ephesians. Go to something that's just a little nicer. But Jeremiah, no, she is a new believer. She is reading the word. She is studying the word. And she wants to grow in her faith because Jesus is the light of the world. And we can be hopeful. There is hope. There is hope in spite of the pain. I would have totally despaired, totally and completely despaired, if not for the truth that Jesus is the light of the world. And there is hope.

And that leads naturally into point three, which is Jesus, who is our hope, has a plan. So I can have a purpose. So you can have a purpose. This is not random. There is a plan, and there is a purpose. And we don't have to make it up. Jesus already handled it. Look at verses 6 through 8 there. "There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning the light, so that through him all might believe. He himself was not the light. He came only to bear witness of the light." These verses are referring to John the Baptist. And we find out in Luke 1 that John the Baptist's parents were told even before he was born, this child has a specific purpose, to bear witness to the light. And they were told this even before John the Baptist was born. But John had a purpose because there was a plan. And in John's epistle, in 1 John 4, here's the plan. "This is how God showed his love among us. He sent his one and only son--" there's that presence again. "He sent his one and only son into the world, that through him we might live." There's our life again, that promise of life. Jesus has come so that we can have life. That is the plan. And we get to be part of this plan. And that's what gives us purpose. That's what gives us purpose as we go through our days.

And you may think, oh, Val, I don't have time for a purpose. I have messed up too many times. I don't have a purpose. But I'm telling you, there is a plan. Jesus has it. And you have a purpose in life. There was purpose everywhere in the people we met over in Jordan. This man, you may remember him. He was here at Twin Lakes last year, Jamal Hashway. He spoke here, just a remarkable man. He's the guy in green there. He's a refugee himself from Palestine. He, by his own admission, would tell you he was kind of just wavering. He's the youngest of five boys, or six boys, excuse me. One of his brothers is a pastor. One of his brothers is a missionary to Muslims in such an epic way. It would take me another sermon to explain it to you. And Jamal was kind of your Easter, Christmas, Christian. He loved Jesus. He was kind of helping out. But he wasn't really into it until the refugees came to Jordan. And God just lit a fire in this man. And there is nothing, there is nothing this guy wouldn't do for refugees right now.

I'll show you a picture of the warehouse he has. Because he asked somebody, I need a place to store things. So people send stuff to Jamal, the clothes that we got, the food. And he just stores them in this warehouse. We went into that warehouse, dug through all the boxes, got the clothes together. Because Jamal wants to help refugees. He doesn't care if they're Muslim, if they're Christian. If they are a refugee, that is what his heart beats for. The driving purpose of his life right now has been given to him because he knows God has a plan. And he's realized he's part of it. And so now he actually has a purpose.

Another woman that I mentioned last time I spoke, but I had a chance to meet this time, is Hertha. Hertha's there in the middle, and that's Taylor. And oh gosh, Shelly, I almost forgot your name. I was going to call you Sarah. Shelly's standing on either side of her. And we were privileged to have breakfast with Hertha and hear her tell her story of how God is using her in this giant UN refugee camp up on the Syria-Iraq border called Za'adari. If you've ever seen a picture of a refugee camp in Jordan, this is basically kind of the signature picture, signature camp. And she is there. She's from Germany. She is hilarious. She was telling us she didn't even know what she was going to do, but she knew with all these refugees she had to jump in. She and her husband have been missionaries for decades. So she went up to the Za'adari camp without really a plan, managed to convince the UN to give her a 40-foot container room that she used. And she decided to bring the women in to do crafts. Now, Hertha herself does not enjoy crafts. Hertha herself is not crafty. She's a very practical German woman. And I don't think the Germans have a whole lot of room for the crafting and Pinterest and things like that. Generalization, but that was my impression. But Hertha realized this would be a way to reach these women. And so she just jumped in. And she finally, after a lot of trial and error, settled on a project where she bought and brought into the camp scarves and beads. And then the women put these scarves together. Shelley and Taylor are wearing them right in that photo. And it gave the women a chance to breathe. It gave the women a chance finally to do something creative and not just survive. And in the process, as Hertha began shipping these scarves around the world to churches like ours, they started to make some income for themselves. A lot of these women, their husbands are dead or their husbands are still in Syria. And so they are alone. Hertha even-- I love this woman. The UN has a limit on how much people can earn in these camps. But Hertha decided it wasn't enough. So she stormed the citadel and got the UN to give them all a raise. So they did. So now the women are earning even more income for their families. And it's just stunning to see how God is taking ordinary people who have a heart for the truth that God is, through Jesus, reconciling the world to himself. And he's giving them purpose as they do that.

But without a doubt, the guy that stole my heart when we were there as far as purpose and many other things is the guy in this photo. He's in the brown robe. His eyes were just bright and light as he talked to us. He was from Baghdad as well. And he, in Baghdad, ran a school for deaf children. His brother was deaf, so he knew sign language. So he had opened a school for deaf kids. It was near a US base. And so he would interact with the US soldiers, got them to come over to his school. The US soldiers would come. They'd play soccer with the kids. They would bring the kids presents. And it was all going great, except that the neighbors started to accuse this guy of being a spy for the US. And it got very dicey for him and for his family. And one day, his oldest son was kidnapped, and he was gone. And they found him a week later on a bridge with a bullet through his head. He'd been killed. And so they left. They fled with their daughter to Jordan. They got to Jordan, and it was discovered that their daughter, their remaining child, had brain cancer. And she was gone in four months. So there you are, sitting in the living room. And what do you say? Well, the good news is we didn't have to say anything because this guy did all the talking. He just recently became a believer, converted from Islam to Christianity. And he was so excited about his faith that he was witnessing to Paul and I, telling us the truth about Jesus. And good news, Paul is a Christian now. I'm so happy to tell you all that. So these outreach trips really do have their impact, after all. But he was so grateful for his newfound faith. And you know what? That faith has given him purpose. And here's this guy's purpose. He laid it all out for us. When he gets to America, because that's where he would like to come, he is going to have a TV show where he signs all of the Bible stories for deaf Muslims in America so that they can find Jesus. And that's his heart. This time I brought Kleenex. But that's his heart. He wants to do that. And that's giving him so much purpose. And his life is still a little dicey. Converting from Islam to Christianity is technically illegal in Jordan. Proselytizing is illegal. And he's getting flack from the community because they can tell that he's not the same as he used to be, that he's a Jesus follower. And they're accusing him. Actually, you'll see one shutter is closed in this photo. It's because we had just prayed with him. And when we prayed, he closed the shutters because he is nervous about the community around him. It's still sketchy. It's still not easy. But I am telling you, when you are in these situations, sitting with these refugees, present with them, you want to despair because it just feels overwhelming. But yet there is hope because you see people acting on the purpose that God has given them. You see people totally motivated by the truth that the darkness will not last, that Jesus has come into the world. And we get to bear witness to this. And again, you might be saying, I can't. I can't. I can't, Val. For whatever reason you want to give me, I'm tired. I'm done. I don't care. I can't. Let's jump ahead to verse 12, one of the best verses in the Bible as far as I'm concerned. "Yet to all who did receive him," Jesus, "to those who believed on his name, he gave the right to become children of God, to all who believed, to all who call on his name." Again, the ground is level at the foot of the cross like we studied in Acts for months. There's no Greek. There's no Jew. It's colorblind at the foot of the cross. It is all, all, all, all. And this must have really impacted John because in his epistle in 1 John 3:1, he says, "See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called the children of God. And that is what we are." That is what you are. You may not have anything else going for you right now, but you are a child of God. That is what you are. That is your most true identity. No matter what else you want to say about yourself, that is your most true identity.

Something we learned in Jordan that was really striking to me is that everybody in Jordan who gets their identity card, just like a driver's license, not only has your name and all that stuff, but it has your religion. Can you imagine that? We Americans would not be OK with that. But it has your religion because your religion is part of the core of who you are. There's not a whole lot of separation of church and state going on over there. And what's interesting, if your religion is marked as Muslim, your identity card can never change. Can never change. It doesn't matter if you convert to Christianity. You can go to court. They'll try to put you through some program to get you back to Islam. They'll throw you in jail, but they will not change your identity card because your identity can't change. But here's the good news for the refugees. Here's the good news for us. It doesn't matter what our identity card says. Because this verse tells us that we are children of God. That is what we are. That is what you are. You have purpose because you are a child of God.

And finally, John 1 tells us in one of the best verses-- I know I keep saying best verses, but I really do like this passage-- one of the best verses in the Bible, verse 14, that Jesus came near so we can go near, so I can go near, so you can go near. Verse 14, the word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only son who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. The word Jesus became flesh and made his dwelling among us, the power of presence. This changes everything. If this is not true, then we should all go to Gail's and go home and watch football. Because there is no point in being here if this is not true. But thank God it is. The word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. And because this is true, it means two things. First of all, it means that you and I can go near to God. We can actually go near to God. God has come near to us, and we can go near to him. Hebrews 4 tells us that we can go and approach the throne of grace. We can approach God's throne. That's a crazy thing. We can approach the throne of God with confidence. And we're going to get mercy and grace and help. Because Jesus came near, we can go near to God.

And then secondly, because Jesus, the co-existent, co-equal with God, came near to us, he wants us to follow his example and go near to others. He wants us to be present with others. He wants us to go near to them. One of the most intense spans of time that happened to me on this trip came after a midweek service for refugees. And this service was packed. I mean to tell you, the fire department here in the States would have been not OK with chairs all the way down the aisles, people sitting everywhere. If there was a spot, there was somebody in that spot. It was packed. And it was a great service. It was an intense service. And then afterwards, Jamel introduced us to this man, Hassan. And Hassan's story was just hair-raising. One of the more hair-raising stories we heard, Hassan, who was from Iraq also, Muslim, refused to join ISIS. Not because he was a believer, not because of anything. He just thought ISIS was crazy. He refused to join them. And he was taken. He was tortured. He was abused. I'm going to zoom in on his hand for a second. You can see his hand is deformed. Both his hands look like that now. There are scars that you can't see super well in this photo. But there are scars all up and down his arms. And this is because he wouldn't join. He wouldn't join. He wasn't a believer in Jesus at the time. And what he told us is that in the midst of all of this craziness, in the midst of all this abuse, Jesus appeared to him four times and called him to be a child of God. And this is a common story when you talk to Muslims, is they see Jesus. And if you think of for a minute, you might go, that seems a little sketchy. I don't know. Americans don't believe in that kind of stuff. What would it take for you to convert to Islam? It would take something pretty spectacular, wouldn't it? Well, I think God in his mercy and wisdom knows. It would take something pretty amazing. And so he repeatedly, we heard, is appearing to people. And Hassan saw God calling him four times. And he eventually was able to get out. And he got to Jordan. And in Jordan with Jamel, with Rami, he found what it meant to be a child of God. He found what it meant to be loved. He found what it meant to have hope. No matter what, his hands aren't going to heal. He's going to be like this for the rest of his life. But he has hope, so much hope, because he's loved not only by Rami and Jamel, but by the most high God. And he knows that to the core of his being.

So I had heard Hassan's story. And I was trying to process that without my head exploding. And then we were watching all of the people at church that night got food. They got dinner. And guess what? Twin Lakes Church, they got dinner because you bought dinner that night. They had said, it would be nice if maybe we could give the refugees dinner. And so Paul said, all right, Twin Lakes Church will pick up the bill. So I was having so much joy at the same time watching all these people get food, thinking, I love my church. This is a great church that feeds people and helps people. I was like, this is awesome. And then in the midst of all this, a woman, an elderly woman, walked up to us. And I didn't know Paul was taking pictures of this exchange at the time. But she came up to us. And she explained to us that she was 12 hours from being put on the streets because she didn't have her rent money. And she got to me. She needed $100. She had nobody, no one. And so of course, we said, don't worry. Twin Lakes Church will take care of it. You guys did a lot over there. Twin Lakes Church took care of a lot. But in the midst of arranging to get the money to her and things like that, they asked me to pray for her and give her a hug. So I gave her a hug. And then I was a bit at a quandary because I don't speak Arabic. And she didn't speak English. And I thought, what are we going to do now? But I decided, well, hugs are universal. I kept giving her hugs. And then I put my hands on her shoulders. And I didn't know Paul caught that moment, but he did. And I didn't know what to do. And so I prayed the only Arabic word that I could think of that seemed prayer appropriate. And I just prayed the name of Jesus over and over and over again. And here's why I did that, beyond the fact that it's the only Arabic word I know. It's because I believe, like we sang in that song, that there is power in the name of Jesus, that it's a beautiful name, that it's a wonderful name, that it is a name that reminds us that we are children of the Most High God. This woman and I stand at the level ground of the cross. As children of the Most High God, there is power in that name. And I will hopefully get to go back to Jordan. And I will hopefully pick up a few more words of Arabic along the way. But I will never learn a more powerful word than the word Jesus. It's the most powerful word of them all.

Excuse me. There are times when I wonder, why did God send Jesus to Earth? It all seems complicated. It wasn't as dramatic as maybe we would have liked. So sometimes people don't want to hear about it. They don't want to believe. Why didn't God do something else? Why didn't-- you know, sky writing, lightning bolts, something different than a simple baby being born in a manger. But I think part of the reason is because God knows the extreme power of presence. And he needed to come here. He needed to come near so that we would know he gets it. He's been here. He understands. And really, this is the bottom line. Presence changes everything. God's presence through Jesus with us obviously changed everything. And now we, changed, can go and be near and present with other people. And as we enter this Christmas season, I just want to encourage you to think of ways that you can imitate the eternal and present Savior. Not all of us are going to go to Jordan. Not all of us are going to go even across the street right now. But there are all ways that God is calling us to go near to others. There are ways that God wants us to go near to people. And I want to encourage you to think of those things. And don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. I just want to encourage you because God's already come near to you. You don't have to be afraid. And don't be afraid because the God who came near has called you his child, the child of the Most High God. And that is who you are.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we are eternally grateful for your gift of salvation through your Son, Jesus Christ. Thank you so much for being willing to come and dwell with us. Thank you for calling us children of God. And Lord, we want to live like children of the Most High God. And I pray that you would be present with each one of us in our relationships as we go into this Advent season. I pray that you would help us to be willing to draw near not only to you, but to go near to others, to share in life with them. God, please give us the courage to act on the purpose you've given us. And may our actions reflect you. May they reflect the light of the God who came near. In Jesus' name, amen.