Angels Ascending & Descending

SERMON: 2008-06-29--jn0108--angels-ascending-descending SOURCE DURATION: 00:52:33.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 2 CONFIDENCE: 1.00 APPROVED: false REASON: The opening segment [0] begins the address/sermon. The closing segments [574]-[595], despite containing singing (which is treated as part of the sermon's ritualistic conclusion or benediction), are clearly connected to the overall message and event structure. Acoustic segmentation found sustained music at the start and end edge and moved the boundary to the adjacent transcript segment. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: 00:04:42.420-00:04:50.100, 00:07:40.600-00:07:48.380, 00:11:33.800-00:11:41.480, 00:15:36.440-00:15:44.340, 00:47:38.960-00:50:59.420, 00:51:03.240-00:52:11.180 ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: yes ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: start, end Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:00:00.000; remove through 00:04:50.100] [CUT] Well, last night for those of us who were here was a time of reminiscing, a time of celebrating, a time of not only weeping together but also really laughing together. This morning our emphasis lies on uncelebrating together how God through His Holy Spirit by faith in Jesus in this place, through the ministry of this community has touched lives for His glory. So we're going to show you a series of four video interviews that Trevor Crowe did with members of our congregation and then put together as a video. At the end of that I'll come back up and share some scripture with you as we celebrate this transition from these facilities to the next. So please take a look at this, it runs about 20 minutes. My name is Darrell Brown, I'm 51 years old, I'm married to my wife Nora for 32 years, I have two grown children, Jason and Andrea, I've been going to Maranatha since 1997. As long as back as I can remember I was ashamed of who I was. That shame was something that my parents dressed me in every morning. The shame was a result of a family secret which was a mental illness in my grandfather. In those days you just didn't talk about mental illness, it was something that you kept quiet. I remember the first time that I knew that other people knew when I was at a friend's house and my best friend's father mentioned that my grandfather was in the mental institution and it struck me that, oh no, the secret is out, people know what we're really like, people know what I'm really like and so anyway that's the kind of home I grew up in, lots of shame, lots of dysfunction, alcohol, abuse. We did go to church during those years, when I was 10 we moved, then our parents didn't go to church anymore but we did go to Sunday school, my brothers and I. I remember coming to a distinct point in time where I thought this isn't for me, these people are hypocritical because they're doing the same things outside of church as everybody else so I decided that church wasn't for me and I continually walked further and further from the Lord in those days, I got into first smoking, then drinking and pornography. I was very insecure, I got through the high school years, met my wife the year before I got out of high school, we got married and then marriage problems, several years in there where there was a lot of pain and a lot of suffering, I actually come to a point where I was blaming everything on my marriage, decided that maybe that was the solution to my problems was to separate and find someone else. I did manage to find someone else and I just couldn't leave my family. At that point I remember having this strong desire to get my kids into a church and then that even changed to a desire to get myself to a church, started reading books about spirituality. After a couple of years of that I even got to the point where I was dropping hints to a co-worker to invite me to church but he didn't. At that time I did run into John Van Berkel again, he had since retired, was working for another company and we did meet one day and I knew that if I mentioned some of my personal stuff that he would invite me to church and he did. So we did attend church, when we first walked in Nora especially felt a sense of comfort, she felt like she was home, like she belonged there. It wasn't long after that that there was an alpha banquet at Maranatha and Nora and I both came and through that course and that time we were both filled with the Holy Spirit and repented deeply of our sins and were born again. Sometimes when I'm sitting in church and I look at the people I just get an overwhelming sense of love for them. That is something that wasn't in me before, it was always about me and now I just love people, I love lost people, I want to help everybody. I guess as I look back in my life now, I can see where God never left me. I can see that all those times where I thought He abandoned me, He was there. I see all the places where He was there where all I used to see was the places that He wasn't. So despite what your circumstances say, there is a God out there who cares and who is looking after you and is waiting for you. And since we've come to Maranatha, we've made the kind of friends that you can trust, that are safe, that love you unconditionally and I know that if we ever needed help, there's dozens of people that would be there for [CUT] us. [PROPOSED CUT 1 END at 00:04:50.100; resume after this marked segment] Hi my name is Diana Bauma and I am married to Franklin and we have five children. Connection with Maranatha started when I went to high school at Queenie Christian, so I knew Marguerite Mersma and she of course went to Maranatha. So I was connected that sort of way and then when I was in high school, I applied for colleges. The only college I got accepted to was Loyola's College and that was because the secretary had made a mistake, which I find complete providence now when I look back on it that the only place I got accepted was Loyola's College and I could only go to Belleville. So I dropped out halfway through my second year in nursing at Loyola's and that's when sort of life started to fall apart for me. I started drinking a lot. I think I just, at that point, the sadness that was in my life was just like I couldn't escape it anymore. Yeah, there was something just fundamentally wrong with me. I used to always go around like wondering what normal was, you know, because I had no idea what normal was supposed to feel like. I ended up going to Maranatha when I came to Loyola's and stuff, so then I, Mark went with me to Pastor Visser's and I started seeing him. Pastor John introduced me to a living Jesus, to someone who was real, who I could have a personal, personal relationship with, that I could trust with my heart of hearts. Maranatha for me is, yeah, I mean, Franklin was there, right? He is part of all of that for me. He saw me in my worst times and, yeah, was the one who brought me to the third floor when I tried to kill myself. I mean, Pastor John and Michelle were like a mom and a dad to me and lots of other people around here were brothers and sisters that could just love me and have fun with me and just be those representatives, like flesh and blood, of Jesus for me so I could actually not just know in my head, but also just feel in my heart that Jesus was real. So, definitely Maranatha is my family and now I have five kids and it's wonderful now. That calling in my life is a lot about just being a mom, just being the best example to my kids that I can be by God's grace. And I look at where my life was back then and I look at where it is now, I think that my kids helped shape my edges and stuff like that. I stepped out this year and started homeschooling, which is something that I had dreamed about since we first had Zachary and never thought I would have the skills or the patience or anything for and I look at what I'm doing with my kids and I think I could never have done that, never ever. I'm Jim Wanamaker, married to Karen, have been going to Maranatha for about three years now. I grew up in the United Church as a kid, went to church on a regular basis with my mother, remember my father, my father I don't think was a believer. Over the years, I was a regular goer up until the time I was 18 and then something happened between a minister and I and I walked away. I was of the belief that the Bible would change, even though it said what it did, it had to adjust to modern times and I've learned since that I was way off on what I believed. I was a true blue sinner, smoker, drinker, partier, believed in having a good time, thought I had good friends but as long as you were drinking and partying, they were good friends. If you weren't doing that, they weren't good friends. Then wasn't doing anything church-wise when I started the alpha course, went there fully intending to prove them wrong and me right and no other reason and the first three nights of being there, they should have thrown me out. John Van Berkel was my first leader with Teneke Balma and they were great people, very friendly but I went in with not what you would call a chip on the shoulder, I was carrying the full chunk of wood and daring everybody to knock it off. I belittled John, called him names, I told him he was an idiot, I told him he was a racist and he just stayed true through the whole thing and I guess it was about the fourth week, the end of the third week, it was like a ping in the back of the head, something woke me up. I started seeing things in a different light, no longer attempted to terrorize anybody, started opening my ears instead of my mouth and from that point on it's been a journey. First time that I think there was a change coming was sleeping one night and there was a loud booming voice telling me that I'm not listening and I get up and said to Karen "What am I not listening about?" and she said "What are you talking about?" I was on my way to a golf tournament in Eastern Ontario with my GM rep and there was a big silence and all of a sudden this voice hit me again "You're not listening" and I said to Janet "What am I not listening about?" and she said "What are you talking about? I didn't say anything" and it made me start thinking that maybe I'm not listening to the right things and I started paying far more attention than I had been. Went back to reading my Bible, something I hadn't done in years and years and years. He's opened me up a lot more and Darrell Brown once said to me as we were having coffee that he doesn't mind being called a Bible thumper and we had a big discussion about it. I was still in my attitude mode at the time and I guess I've become one and the people at work know it every place I go. I let them know what we're doing and that we're building a church and you're welcome to come and knowing what God did for me makes you proud to say that you are a Christian. I should be under humongous amounts of stress right now with selling the house and buying a house and moving my business and the type of work I'm in. I'm the parts manager at Klootz and with General Motors being in the turmoil they're in, it's created a great deal of stress and it doesn't bother me. I couldn't care less. If this fails, something else is going to happen and if it doesn't, I know that I'm going to be looked after. There is far less worry on me than I've ever had in my life and just turn it over to somebody else. They're better at it than I am. Hi I'm Mary Lynn Folds. And I'm Rick Folds. And together we have ten grandchildren and two great grandchildren and four children between us. Yes. We're a blended family. Yeah. When I first came to Maranatha, I was pretty discouraged about my marriage. We had been to several counselors and nothing really had helped. We were separated at the time and it was strange because we both came to this church at the same time. I was going to the 9 o'clock service. Mary Lynn was going to the 11 o'clock service and unknown to us at the time, we were both coming here and we met on the stairs one day, just inside here. And I said to her, "What are you doing coming to my church?" And she said, "What are you doing coming to my church?" And so we had a bit of a discussion about that and we just kept on coming to the 9 and the 11, but something a little deeper was touching us at the time and we didn't even know about it. After my friendship with Leslie Groningen, she had lent me the book Olive Shoots Around the Table and that was a very significant book because I saw myself in that book and my husband in that book and our marriage in that book. And that gave me hope. I felt if I came to the church where the man that wrote that book was preaching, then maybe something could happen. And Leslie had told me that pastor only counseled people who belonged to the church. So one morning after the service, he was in the foyer and I went up to him and I said, "I understand that you only counsel people who belong to this church." He said, "That's pretty well it." And I said, "Well then I want to join your church because my marriage is doomed if you don't help me." And he said, "Phone me Tuesday." And that started a wonderful time of counseling. Pastor Visser counseled us and sent us to marriage mentors, Marianne and Bill Barrett. And through the ministry of the marriage ministers here at the church and through coming to Maranatha and being so loved and embraced by the body of Christ here, our marriage got put back together. And this church is so down to earth with help. Felix Boer and a group of men from Maranatha moved me home, never charged me a cent. We feel so loved, so part of things here, so embraced by the people of Maranatha. We've been all over to different churches because we sing, but nothing has touched us like Maranatha has. I hadn't even seen where Maranatha was. I didn't know where it was located. I had to really look for it at first. This is a special place for us I think because pastor talks about growing up in Christ and we're both from dysfunctional homes and we brought baggage into our marriage because we were both married before. And it's just through the ministry of Dave Bodding and Pastor Visser and the marriage ministry and the men's group, we've watched each other grow up in Christ. I mean we're still not there yet. John Roper said we're young at heart even though we're in our 60s. And great grandparents too. That's right. Yeah. We feel at Maranatha that you can be yourself. The first little while when I was coming, my friends said it's okay to cry. Well I cried every Sunday when I came at first. You know what? So did I. Yeah. But it's okay to be real here. That's the wonderful part of it. This year in February we went on our cruise for our 25th anniversary. And if it wasn't for Maranatha we wouldn't have been able to do that. And we'd have likely quit at about 20. What an amazing thing Lord. That in a world filled with all the fruit of unrighteousness, you still so love us. That you're personally involved in our lives and bring us to yourself. And Lord these four stories are but representative of multitudes of stories that could be told by people in this church. Our experience of you has not always been equally dramatic. And Lord just to know that you've been there is what propels us forward and makes us want to share that good news with the rest of the world. And so as we celebrate your blessing, as we look forward to what lies ahead, oh Lord God, stir your passion within our hearts. Help us to not rest nor give you rest until all those in this community and surrounding communities has had an opportunity to hear and to respond to the saving message of Jesus. Bless your word now. Give me words as I try to share your burden with your people. And Lord help all of us just to know the glorious reality of being joined to you through faith in Jesus. We pray it in his name, amen. Gonna read you just a couple of verses from John's Gospel, the first chapter you listen to it. And then see if you can identify what Old Testament story is being alluded to. John chapter one has Jesus meeting up with Nathaniel who becomes one of his disciples. And Jesus says concerning Nathaniel, "I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you." And then Nathaniel declared, "Rabbi, you are the son of God, you are the king of Israel." And then Jesus responds this way. He says, "You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You shall see greater things than that." And then he added, "I tell you the truth, you shall see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the son of man." Angels of God ascending and descending on the son of man. What Old Testament story is being referred to here? Speak it out. Jacob's Ladder. The story of Jacob's Ladder is recorded for us back in the book of Genesis in the 28th chapter. To refresh your memory, was the younger of twin sons born to Isaac and Rebekah in their old age. His older brother was Esau and already before the twins were born, God had told Rebekah that contrary to cultural tradition, the birthright, the inheritance would not go to the elder brother, but rather to the younger, to Jacob. Now Jacob could hardly be called a man of faith. His name means supplanter or deceiver. The reason for that was because when he was born, he was holding on to Esau's heel. And all through his life, he wanted to get ahead of Esau. And so on two occasions, he tried to swindle Esau out of his birthright. The first time, of course, was when Esau came home from being out in the field, he was hungry. He wanted some of the lentil stew that Jacob was brewing. Jacob saw his opportunity and he said, "I'll exchange the lentil stew for your birthright." And Esau was hungry, didn't care about his birthright, and that's how that trade took place. But later on when Isaac thought he was dying, he called Esau in to give him the blessing, the blessing of the firstborn. And Rebekah, who seemed to keep her ear on everything that was going on in that tent, heard about it and told Jacob, "Listen, you're about to be swindled out of your birthright, pretend to be Esau." He did, and he took the firstborn blessing instead of Esau. Well, you can imagine that by the time Esau found out about this, he was none too happy. In fact, he was just royally ticked to the point that he was going to kill Jacob. Again, Rebekah heard about it. And under the pretense of sending him back to where she came from so that he wouldn't marry one of the Canaanite women, Jacob received Isaac's blessing then to go back home. And so he left town hoping that Esau would cool off. And it's on this journey to his mother's home country, Paddan Aram, that he camps one night close to the city of Luz, and he lies down to sleep, and then he has this dream. And in this dream, heaven opens and he sees this ladder. At the top of the ladder in heaven, there stands the Lord God Almighty. Down here is Jacob sleeping on the ground, and in between, angels ascending and angels descending. And very clearly then, it's that story that Jesus picks up on here when he says to Nathanael, "Greater things than that, you're going to see. You're going to see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man." And the point that Jesus is making here is an incredibly profound point because he is introducing a transition from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant. Think this through with me for just a moment. What does the ladder represent? Well, the ladder is a gateway into heaven. It is the point of connection between heaven and earth, and the angels, they are representative of the traffic back and forth between heaven and earth, as the little vacation Bible school did he says, "And the blessings will come down as the prayers go up." The angels ascending refer to heavenly messengers carrying into the presence of God all our needs, our prayers, our petition, our praises, our acts of service. And the angels descending, they come with the blessings of God towards his covenant people. And that is indeed what the story represents is very clear if you read on in Genesis chapter 28, what it is that God says to Jacob when he has this dream. He says, "I am the Lord, the God of your father, Abraham, and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go. And I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised." Remember Jacob has had to leave home. His deceit has finally turned back on his own head. And you can well imagine that he was in a place where he said, "Well, you know, my future is shot. The promises of God will never be realized." And so here comes God to this deceiving Jacob, to this man whose name is supplanter. And he says, "Listen, you may have really messed up, but I'm your God, and I'm going to keep my promises to you and all the promises that are made to Abraham, promises to inherit the earth and to bless the nations, all those promises I'm going to give to you, and I'm going to fulfill them in your life." Now what's Jacob's response to that revelation and to that speaking that God does into his life? Well, the story goes on to tell us that Jacob chooses to change the name of this location from "Luz" to "Bethel." I wonder here who knows the meaning of the word "Bethel." Bethel means "house of God." So here's his response. He says, "How awesome is this place. This is none other than the house of God. This is the gate of heaven." And so he called that place "Bethel," though the city used to be called "Luz." Now if you're with me so far, you'll begin to understand the significance of the words of Jesus when he says to Nathanael, "Greater things than these you're going to see. You're going to see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man." Because what is Jesus saying? He is saying that under the old covenant, the link between heaven and earth used to be where? It used to be the house of God. Where was the house of God? It was the tabernacle in the wilderness. It was the temple in Jerusalem in later years. And it's in the temple and earlier in the tabernacle where God dwelt with his manifest glory. And God is present everywhere, but among his people he shows his glory and he makes his dwelling place. And so it was in going to the temple that Israel's sins were forgiven. It's in going to the temple where they bring their sacrifices and their worship, where their petitions are lifted before God through the ministry of the Mosaic law. It was in the temple that God would meet them, give answers to their questions and solutions to their problems and where he would impart his blessing to the nation so that they could be the people of God fulfilling the destiny of God. Now here's what Jesus says. He says it used to be that that link between heaven and earth was at the house of God in Jerusalem, but I've come to introduce a change. From now on you're going to see that link not at the temple, but you're going to see it in me because you see the genius of the New Covenant, the genius of the New Testament is that God's presence is no longer confined to a single location. You don't have to travel to Jerusalem in order to meet with God. God is everywhere where a believer is united to him through faith in Christ and especially where those believers gather together because Jesus says where two or three are gathered together, let alone many more, there I am in the midst of them. And so it's through Jesus that our sins are forgiven. It is through Jesus that we have confidence and boldness to draw near to God. It's through Jesus that we can bring him our prayers and our petitions and our praise and our worship and our sacrifices and our lives of service and it is through Jesus, it is through Jesus that the heavens are opened and the blessings promised to Abraham so many years ago that we would inherit in Christ the earth and receive all God's blessings. It is through Jesus that those blessings are realized. Jesus put it this way later on in John's Gospel, he says, "I am the way and the truth and the life, nobody, nobody comes to the Father but by me." And Paul echoes that same kind of sentiment in the book of Ephesians when he says for through him, that is through Jesus, we both have access to the Father by one spirit. And so just as in the Old Testament, Bethel representing the house of God was the link between heaven and earth, so today the link between heaven and earth is established by the presence of the person of Jesus Christ. You with me so far? Now all of that has incredibly practical implications for you and for me today as we talk about transitioning from these facilities to new facilities. Because you see, while we don't in our tradition have much of a theology of sacred spaces, the fact remains that this building and the ministries that it houses have been for many of us a Bethel, a house of God, a place where heaven and earth are united, a place where many of us were introduced to the person of Jesus, a place where many of us have experienced the favor, the presence, the power of God, a place where we lift up our hearts to God and we cry out about our needs and the need for his restoration in our lives, a place where we receive his instruction, a place where our lives have been touched, sometimes dramatically, sometimes less dramatically but always in ways that have never ever left us the same. Let me take a poll here this morning. How many of you would say there have been times when you've been here that you know that God has impacted your life? Let me see your hands. Look at that. For so many of us, Bethel, the house of God, I'll never forget years back, my voice gave out, was gone for quite a stretch of time and in obedience to James chapter 5, invited the elders to meet with me and to pray over me and this sort of thing typically never happens to me but I so recall that as they were praying, I physically felt something move and my voice came back and I know it was the touch of God. You've heard Jim's story, you've heard Daryl's story, you've heard Diana's story, you've heard Rick and Mary Ann's story, isn't that hilarious about meeting in the foyer? What are you doing at my church? Only God can arrange that kind of thing. That is part of the memory associated with this place. Many of us were baptized here. Some of us were married here. I had Marlene do a little checking in the records and since I've come here in 1985, I've had the privilege of doing something like 333 baptisms or child dedications. In that same period of time, we've had something like 114 marriages and that's not even thinking of those who were married or baptized or instructed here in years before that or those who were married elsewhere or married by somebody else. The house of God and so even while we look forward to going to the new place, we can be forgiven, can't we, for waxing a bit nostalgic and wondering what does the future hold? If you were here last night, you will have seen that video presentation with Roberta and the emotion associated with organ and organ music and the prospect of leaving that behind and I so remember a couple of months ago after one of those rousing worship sessions where you knew that our hearts were just rising before God and God was gloriously present. I remember Roberta came to me with tears in her eyes and she said, "I hope that when we go to the new place, we don't lose this." I said to her, "You know, that's my hope and my prayer to you because you see, realistically, when you move from one building to another, you not only gain some things and hopefully will gain more than what we lose, but things are different and in that process of transitioning, it's going to take some getting used to." Experts talk about the psycho-acoustical qualities of buildings and by that they mean not only the psychology, the memories associated with a particular building, how it feels, but also how it sounds and how you experience the sound and one of the reasons this place sings so incredibly well is because of the way that it's been constructed with wood on the ceiling and tiles on the floor and sound bounces around and that contributes to our worship. Now when we go to the new place, the auditorium is a lot bigger, probably about two and a half times the size of this. It doesn't have a balcony and some of you that sneak in late or leave early, it's going to be a little tougher trying to find your way around and the feel of the place will be very different. It's going to be fascinating to watch how we find our new location. I mean, we all got our chairs, right? Little transition, transitioning from pews to chairs, that was traumatic enough for some of us, but now really we've got to transition. It'll be interesting to see how that happens and even though we've hired the services of an acoustical engineer to try to guarantee that both the spoken word and music will work as best as possible at our main auditorium, some of that remains to be seen. Hopefully he's got it right and there's all those kinds of transitions. However, we're going to have 9 o'clock and 11 o'clock together and that'll be a transition because any of us who lead services here can tell you that the psychology of the one versus the other is somewhat different. The 9 o'clock crowd typically is older, you're typically younger, they're typically in some ways more restrained, you're more exuberant. We're going to put you together and good luck to us all, right? We'll see what the Lord will do, but those are transitions and some of those transitions will be fun and they will go well and other transitions are going to grate on us a little bit like, "Did we trade this for that or that for this?" And all of that, I am convinced, we can survive and survive well if there is one condition that does not change. And you can guess that, can't you? That's the presence of Jesus. Because ultimately a building is not the architecture, it's not the furniture, in some ways it's not even the people in the building. It's whether God's there or not. And if God's there, the deaf hear, the lame walk, the blind see, and the poor have good news proclaimed to them. And you know why we can tell stories in this place of God's redemption? Is because as people have worshipped God and sought to be faithful to God and remain in unity with each other, God has chosen to manifest His presence even in the physical process of this building. You know that? I will never forget back in '85 when I first walked into this building, I knew God's presence was here. And I've spoken to many, many people since and they have said, "You know, we walk in through these doors and it's like we're at home." You heard Jim refer to it, talking about receiving a hug, Mary Lynn and Rick talking about crying their way through those first services. That's not just because, you know, we abound in emotional manipulation or because we're all so friendly and we know how to, you know, be tearjerkers. No, no. It's when God's here and you're hungry for God and you walk into His presence, you know you are at home and you can never, ever be the same. Do you understand me? It's God's presence that makes it happen, angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man and those who are in relationship with Him and walk with Him. So what's the issue when we transition to 100 College Street West? Not just the building, not just the furniture, not just the psychoacoustics of the building, important as all of those may be. What will really define us is will Jesus be there and will He show up in power? Will we together in those facilities be a Bethel, the house of God with angels descending and angels ascending? The prayers go up as the blessings of God come down. So how do we take Jesus with us? Well, He's already there. In fact, He's everywhere. But how can we experience His manifest presence? Well, I think we invite Him along. In fact, for the past year as the building has been going up, we've already had a prayer team of intercessors praying as early as time and circumstances would allow on the property, not just so that the building would go well and things stay on schedule as indeed it has gone and has been, but more importantly than that, for God to be there, to greet us and to meet us with His power and with His presence because it's in the presence of God that great things happen. We invite Him along not only, but we remain in fellowship with Him and in fellowship with each other. There's a verse in Isaiah that is a profound verse. This is the man or the woman I esteem, says the Lord God. He was humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word. You know how we guarantee the presence of God? By walking in repentance and in faith before Him and in love and humility with each other. You know what is the surest way to grieve the Spirit of God and to drive Him away? It's to allow pride to develop within our hearts and an arrogance that separates one from the other. Here's the thing we need to understand. There is a very fine line between a healthy sense of pride and accomplishment that says, "Wow, look at what the Lord has enabled us to accomplish and look at what kind of community that God has built us into. Let us thank Him and give Him praise." That's a good kind of pride, but it's a very fine line between that kind of pride and the sort of arrogance that says, "Look at the mighty Babylon that I have built. Look at this great building. Look at the great church that we are. Look at the great things that are happening here." And very easy beyond that to look down on everybody else and say, "Well, those poor souls if they only had what we had." That is arrogance. And that's the kind of pride that is a stench in the nostrils of God and will grieve the Holy Spirit. Likewise, the Bible talks about maintaining the unity and the bond of peace, dealing with all those things that separate us one from another so the devil can never drive wedges in between and God's Holy Spirit can prosper and build and restore and establish for the glory of God. That's how you take God with you. And that's how God's presence becomes real. And each one of us, we have to look at our own hearts, weigh that, sort that out, and walk that out. And then, of course, we need to commit ourselves to the purposes of God. Because why does God enter into covenant with us? Why did He enter into covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob so many years ago? Not only so that they could experience the blessings of God, important as these are. Not only because in that way they could reflect the character of God to the nations of the world, but also so that through them, the blessings of God could flow to the ends of the earth, because God has a missionary spirit, did you know that? He doesn't wish that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. I hear these stories that we heard this morning and many more that could easily be duplicated. And I've got to tell you, my heart overflows with gratitude, not just because God is at work and God has been at work in their lives, but because God allows us as His people to share with Him in the harvest. Do you know what's going to happen on that final day when we stand before God and we see the fruit of our labors? Do you realize that every life changed, every heart transformed to be more like Jesus is a treasure, a jewel we take with us into glory? Paul says, "I believe it's to the Philippians, 'Who are my joy and who are my crown but you?'" And when you and I contribute to the cause of Jesus, when you and I share our time, talent and treasure, even if it's just in the backroom and nobody ever even knows that we're there, even if it's out in the kitchen doing the dishes or sweeping the floor or God knows what, there is nothing we do in His name that He blesses that isn't going to have lasting and eternal fruit for the glory of God. That's our passion, that's our mission, that's our vision, and that's what God invites us afresh to step into because Jesus says, "Greater things than these, greater things than these, you will do." Why? Because you're going to see the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man. So we're going to wind this up by showing you another minute and a half of video footage of the interviews that Trevor did with the people whose stories you have just heard, and then we're going to show you a multimedia presentation that John Roper has put together called "The God of this City." So please take a look at this. At the time of that first invitation to church, nobody in my family was a Christian. Now all of my brothers, three of my brothers, two of their wives, my kids, my dad, my mom are all Christians. We took our ex-daughter-in-law with us to see the cigar box and asked her what it was like to walk in. She had never been to Maranatha before, she's non-Christian, and she said as she stepped on the steps, she felt like somebody was giving her a big hug, and we both say the same thing every time we walk in the door. It feels like home, and I know there's a lot of people worried about the new church, what it's going to feel like, but I'm sure when the furniture's in and the pew chairs are in and the people are in, it's going to feel like a big hug. And I just look forward to the ministry that we're going to have to the community at large because the size of the building, the facilities that are going to be there, are just unbelievable. And I just see the community coming to Maranatha and saying, hey, this is fantastic. Like there's more room for people to spread out, there's more room for people to do things, there's more room to bring people in. I'm really excited about going to the new church. I really believe that God's going to move powerfully in Belleville and in our community. I have been sensing it for a while, I just feel that it's time for people, I guess it's time to harvest some of the seeds that we've been sowing for the past many years. I'm really excited about whatever God's going to do when we get there. Not necessarily in any one program, but just a sense that He is going to do something. [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 2 START at 00:47:38.960; remove through 00:52:33.000] You're the King of these people, You're the Lord of this nation, You are. You're the light in this darkness, You're the hope to the hopeless, You're the peace to the restless, You are. There is no one like our God. There is no one like our God. For greater things have yet to come, and greater things are still to be done in this city. Greater things have yet to come, and greater things are still to be done in this city. You're the God of this city, You're the King of these people, You're the Lord of this nation, You are. You're the light in this darkness, You're the hope to the hopeless, You're the peace to the restless, You are. There is no one like our God. For greater things have yet to come, and greater things are still to be done in this city. Greater things have yet to come, and greater things are still to be done in this city. Greater things have yet to come, and greater things are still to be done in this city. For greater things have yet to come, and greater things are still to be done here. There is no one like our God. For greater things have yet to come, and greater things are still to be done in this city. For greater things have yet to come, and greater things are still to be done in this city. For greater things have yet to come, and greater things are still to be done in this city. We believe, we believe, greater things, greater things, greater things. Greater things, greater things. [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 2 END at 00:52:33.000; resume after this marked segment]