My Best Yes - Saddleback Weekend Service

God has designed your one life to make a difference. The world is looking for people that will love them where they are and lead them to the kindness of God and see Him transform their lives. One moment in the presence of the Holy Spirit, one moment in the presence of God is enough to erase a lifetime of doubt. One moment in the presence of God is enough to erase a lifetime of regret. There is not a person on the planet that you could pray for that God does not love and care about. And Paul says, He is the God who wants everyone to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth. There's an invitation from God to follow Jesus. He said it over and over and over again. Follow me and to have your life changed. Hey, everybody, Merry Christmas. We're so glad you're here. Come on, let's worship Jesus. He's our wonderful Christ, mighty God, everlasting Father, and our Prince of Peace. So come on, let's sing to Him today. O come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant. O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem. Come and behold Him, born the King of angels. O come, let us adore Him. O come, let us adore Him. O come, let us adore Him, Christ the Lord. Christ the Lord. Sing, choirs of angels. Sing in exultation. Sing, all ye citizens of heaven above. Glory to God. Glory in the highest.

O come, let us adore Him. O come, let us adore Him. O come, let us adore Him, Christ the Lord. Christ the Lord. The Lord. His name shall be wonderful Counselor. His name shall be everlasting Father. His name shall be Prince of Peace, mighty God. His name shall be Emmanuel. We'll praise Your name forever. We'll praise Your name forever. We'll praise Your name forever. Christ the Lord. We'll praise Your name forever and ever. We'll praise Your name forever and ever. ♪ His name is Jesus, praise His name ♪ ♪ Forever arise, the Lord, the Lord ♪ ♪ His name shall be a wonderful counselor to men ♪ ♪ His name shall be everlasting Father ♪ ♪ His name shall be Prince of Peace, Mighty God ♪ ♪ His name shall be Emmanuel ♪ Come on church, let's give Jesus glory. Let's give Him praise. Do you have joy today? I said, do you have joy today? Well, let's lift our voices together. Joy to the world, come on. ♪ Sing joy to the world, the Lord is come ♪ ♪ Let earth receive her King ♪ ♪ Let heart prepare Him room ♪

♪ And heaven and nature sing, and heaven and nature sing ♪ ♪ And heaven and heaven and nature sing ♪ ♪ Oh we will sing, sing, sing, oh ♪ ♪ Joy to the world, we will sing, we will sing, sing, sing ♪ Well, let's sing that second verse together. ♪ Oh joy to the world, the Savior reigns ♪ ♪ Let all this song employ, while fields and fields sing ♪ ♪ And fruits and flowers, rock, hills and plains sing ♪ ♪ Repeat the sounding joy, repeat the sounding joy, repeat the sounding joy, repeat the sounding joy ♪ ♪ And we will sing, sing, sing, joy to the world, sing, joy to the world, joy to the world, joy to the world ♪ ♪ Joy to the world, we will sing, sing, sing, sing, sing, sing, sing, sing, sing, sing, sing, sing, sing, sing, sing, sing, sing, sing, sing, sing, sing, ♪ ♪ He rules the world with truth and grace, and makes the nations prove the glories of His righteousness, and wonders of His love, and wonders of His love, and wonders, wonders of His love. ♪ He rules the world with truth and grace, and makes the nations prove the glories of His righteousness, and wonders of His love, and wonders, wonders, wonders of His love. ♪ Oh, we adore Thee, God of glory, Lord of love ♪ Hearts unfold like flowers before Thee, glory to the Son ♪ Joyful, joyful, joyful, joyful, we adore Thee, God of glory ♪ Hearts unfold like flowers before Thee, glory to the Son Come on church, let's give Jesus glory! He's the Redeemer, He's the Savior, He's our Lord, and He's the King of all Kings. Do you believe that today church? In the darkness we were waiting Without hope and without life To from heaven you came running With the mercy in your eyes To fulfill the law and prophets To a virgin came the Word From a throne of endless glory To a cradle in the dirt Come on, let's lift our hearts and sing together. Praise the Father. Let's sing. Praise the Father Praise the Son Praise the Spirit Reborn God of glory Majesty Praise forever to the King of kings

Come on, let's give Him praise today church. To reveal the kingdom coming And to reconcile the lost To redeem the whole creation You did not despise the cost For even in your suffering You sought to the other side Knowing this was our salvation Jesus for your kingdom you died Praise the Father. Let's sing. Praise the Father Praise the Son Praise the Spirit Free and worthy God of glory Majesty Praise forever to the King of kings And the morn that you rose All of heaven held its breath Till the stone was moved for good For the Lamb had conquered death And the dead rose from their tombs And the angels stood in awe For the Son of our God To the Father God And the church of Christ was born And the Spirit made the way Now this gospel truth of more Shall not kneel, shall not fail By His blood and in His name In His freedom I am free For the love of Jesus Christ Who has resurrected me Praise the Father Praise the Son Praise the Spirit Free and worthy God of glory Majesty Praise forever to the King of kings Praise the Father Praise the Son Praise the Spirit Free and worthy God of glory Majesty Praise forever to the King of kings Praise forever to the King of kings Praise forever to the King of kings to worship him with our voices and declare him as Lord of Lords and King of Kings.

Well, church family, I'm so glad that you're joining us today. Welcome to Saddleback. And something that I love about our online community is that we are made up of people from all around the world. And so I wanna invite you right now to just take a moment and maybe leave a comment of where you're watching from. We have people that are part of our community from South Africa, from India, from Australia, all across the United States and so many other places. And so we love getting to read through those comments and getting to see that our church family is a global family. We're so grateful you're joining us today. And if it's your first time joining us for Saddleback online, we're so glad you're here. We would love to know that it's your first time so that someone from our team can personally reach out to you and help you to get connected. But it starts with you letting us know it's your first time. So you can do that by clicking the link in the description if you're watching on YouTube, or you can open the Saddleback app, set your campus to online community, and then you can open the notes section to access the program and take the next step that way. We can't wait to connect with you and get to know you. Well, we are so glad that we are continuing our stories of Christmas series today. But next weekend at Saddleback across all of our campuses,

our Christmas services are kicking off. And so I wanna invite you, maybe you're near one of our local campuses. This is the perfect opportunity to join us in person for Christmas. You can find out more by going to our website, or if you're not able to join us in person, we wanna invite you to join us online. And I want you to be praying and thinking about who you might be able to invite to join you for Christmas. Christmas is a great opportunity to invite someone to hear the hope that Christ brings, to celebrate with you. And that one invitation might just change the trajectory of someone's life. It might just be the hope that somebody needs. And so maybe you host a watch party and you invite your family and your friends or your neighbors to watch with you, but be praying about who you might wanna invite to join you for Christmas. Church family, we're glad that you're here today. Let's join the rest of our church as we continue to worship together. I wanna say welcome to all of our campuses. Those of you who are joining us online, our extensions, our prison campuses, God is doing amazing things and it's Christmas time at Saddleback. And I always feel like in Christmas, especially at church,

do you say Merry Christmas all through December? I think we do at Saddleback. So Merry Christmas, everybody. And the reason why we say Merry Christmas is because we love this time of year. We get to celebrate the reality that God came from heaven to earth to become one of us, to live among us, having a perfect sinless life, goes to a cross, dies for our sins, and resurrects from the dead. And today we're in the middle of a message series, the second week called Stories of Christmas. Can we say that together? Stories of Christmas. And we've been looking at stories found in the Bible from Christmas. It's the true Christmas story that happened when Jesus came to planet earth. And so today we're gonna continue that series. But I also wanna make sure you know at the end of our time together, we have something very special happening for our whole church family across all of our campuses. We are going to participate together in our Dream Now year-end offering. And we've been looking forward to this moment. Since November, we've been talking about it. We're actually doing this for several reasons. First of all, it's an opportunity for us to worship God

and just say thank you for your faithfulness in our lives. Thank you for all the amazing things that you're doing. And also, in addition to that, we're lifting our eyes this Christmas to say, God, we wanna be your hands and feet, to be used by you to make a difference in our communities around us, to serve, to love. In fact, we actually noticed this Christmas, because of the crisis and government shutdown, there were about 50,000 people in the communities around our stateside campuses without meals this Christmas. And we said, we wanna stand in that gap. So the Dream Now year-end offering is going to feed those families, to help those in need. In addition to that, we've been giving away Christmas presents all month. Today, actually, there were kids that came from the foster care system to one of our campuses. We have this tent set up. Most of our campuses have a space like this, where there's just gifts being given away for kids in need, foster care kids coming. And I heard a story, even as you see some of these pictures, a story from this weekend at one of our campuses, a woman that walked through the door, and she said she's a single mom, she lives paycheck to paycheck, minimum wage, she doesn't have the resources financially, even with food this month, and to give gifts to her kids,

and her church family stepped in the gap, and that's because of you. So I just wanna say thank you for your generosity to be a part of serving and blessing all these families in need. You are a generous church, and this is a great moment for us to just worship God. One other thing. you'll hear more about. This is also, this offering is going to help launch our new South Bay location that is a part of an adoption with a church that approached Saddleback to say, we wanna give our building to you and make it a Saddleback campus. So we're gonna tell more about that. But one thing I just wanna make sure you know, on your seat around you or somewhere around you, there's a Dream Now offering envelope, and you can grab that. And at the end of this service, we'll be giving those together. This is an opportunity for those of us who've committed to Dream Now to give in fulfillment of that. And then for those who have yet to take that step to join in and we're believing God's gonna use this in a very powerful way. See, God is writing a story through us together. And we've been just asking God, how do we step into the fullness of the story

that you have for our lives and that you have for our church? And so that's why we're also in a series called Stories of Christmas. Now, I wanna invite you to pull out your notes. And as we journey together, today we're gonna continue that series looking at the story of Mary and Joseph found in the Bible. And what we're gonna notice from Mary and Joseph is that there's a unique character trait that both of them share together. And I love their story because they were chosen as a couple to be the ones that would give birth to baby Jesus, that Mary would give birth and Joseph would be the adoptive father of Jesus as he would grow up. And you gotta wrestle through why God chose them, why God chose them to be a part of the story of him coming to planet Earth. And as we look at this, we've been wrestling at some very big questions that are a part of stories. Stories in the Bible, stories like movies such as Elf, where people wrestle, that wasn't very spiritual, but where people wrestle through questions. And the questions that actually happen in our hearts are one, there's a question in stories, what do you want? What does the main character want? So Buddy the Elf wants to find his dad. So there's often this desire on the inside.

If you haven't watched Elf, man, what's happening with you? So go watch it. That's the last Elf comment I'm gonna make in the message. Second question is why does what they want matter? So why does the character's desire matter? And then finally, how will they respond? So there's usually a villain that comes in and then ultimately there's a struggle to overcome. And at the end, often there's a hero who's responded to that struggle. Now the Bible has that story arc. And the hero of the Bible is Jesus. He intersects humanity and through his life, from his birth to his death, it's the culmination of the story of God. And God invites us into the story that he's already written and continues to write from generation to generation. Now Matthew chapter one is the beginning of a snapshot where Joseph, the earthly father of Jesus, is called to stay with Mary who finds out she's pregnant with the baby that God has said has come from the Holy Spirit. And there's a lot of mystery to Mary and Joseph. One thing that we actually do know is that they would have come from humble means, meaning that they probably didn't have a whole lot of money financially. Most likely they were about 19, Joseph was probably about 19, 20 years old, late teens, and Mary was early to mid teens when we pick up their story.

As they're engaged to be married, Matthew chapter one, notice this interaction between Joseph and an angel. And it says this, this is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about. His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. And because Joseph, her husband, was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly. So he was gonna just leave the scene. And I was reading this week, I found this to be very interesting. I always wrestled through, why is it that it says that he was going to divorce her quietly? So in their culture, if they were engaged, it was literally the same way in our culture where it's a commitment unto marriage. And so for Joseph to leave her, he'd in essence have to divorce her, but he would do it quietly, and it reveals so much about his character. So what it shows us about Joseph is that he was a righteous man and wanted to honor the law of God. So if Mary was pregnant outside a wedlock and it wasn't Joseph's baby, Joseph is actually following the law to stop the marriage. In addition to that though,

Joseph wants to do it in a way that is merciful towards Mary. So you see his desire to honor God and please God, but also his mercy and grace towards this woman. Just a beautiful picture of his character. And then it continues saying, but after he considered this, God has a way of intervening in our story. Sometimes we're moving the wrong direction and God steps in. So he steps in with the angel and says, the angel of the Lord appears. to him in a dream and said, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins. And all this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet, the virgin will be with child, and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel, which means God with us. This is so important, that Jesus is God in human flesh, God with us, and then it says this, when Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him to do, and he took Mary home as his wife, but he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son, and he gave him the name Jesus. Now, I love this, because what you see is an angel coming to a man named Joseph,

and Joseph actually, notice from the story, Joseph doesn't say anything in the story. Like, we're gonna look at Mary, and Mary actually sings a song after visiting that the angel visits, and Joseph is just like, really quiet, and does the right next thing. And this has gotta be good for some of us dudes here. Like, have you ever noticed men tend not to talk quite as much as women? Not all, I talk a lot, but there are a lot of men that they just, you know, grunt, is kinda how they talk. Mm, how you doing, mm, good. And so that, that like, next time something happens and somebody tells you you don't talk enough, just say, well, Joseph didn't talk at all in the Bible, okay, there were no places, but he was obedient to God. So he did what God asked him to do. And I love this, because it gives us an example of how Joseph entrusted himself to God. He entrusted his future, he entrusted his reputation, he put his life into God's hands and obeyed the vision, the dream, that God gave to him to take Mary home as his wife. Now, as a result of Joseph's obedience and his willingness to entrust himself into God's hands, think about this, Joseph became the first person that God would entrust himself into his hands. So Joseph would be the first hands to catch baby Jesus as he came out of the womb. Joseph entrusted himself into God's hands,

and as a result, he became the first person to hold Almighty God in his hands. And God wants that, really call us to that kind of surrender that so often the invitation to receive what God wants to bring into our lives starts with our open hands. So what does God want to put in your hands? See, God wants to put more into your hands, but if your hands are closed, God can't put it into your hands. And Joseph gives us this beautiful example of surrender and his yes to God. Now, Mary, she's like simultaneously having her interactions with the angel. And notice what happens in Luke chapter one as we see her part of the story. It says, in the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary and the angel went to her and said, greetings, you who are highly favored, the Lord is with you. Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, do not be afraid, Mary. You have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son and you're to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and he will be called the son

of the most high and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David and he will reign over Jacob's descendants forever and his kingdom will never end. Now, Mary, as she gets this word from God, has a very practical, important question. And she looks at the angel and says, well, how can this be? Because I'm a virgin, I'm not sure if you know that. And the angel says, well, actually, the Holy Spirit will come over you and the power of the most high will overshadow you. This is the only time in human history this has ever happened. But God gives this immaculate conception where Mary, she becomes pregnant as the Spirit of God conceives inside of her baby Jesus. And it says, so the Holy One to be born will be called the son of God. Even Elizabeth, your relative, is gonna have a child in her old age. And she who was said to be unable to conceive in her six months, for no word from God will ever fail. Now, notice this next verse. This is one of my favorite verses in the entire Bible. In Luke chapter one, verse 38, Mary has her whole plan rocked. Like she's thinking about her wedding. She's a young teenage girl. She's got her whole future in front of her in a moment.

it's all different. And look at what she says back to the angel. I am the Lord's servant, Mary answered. May your word to me be fulfilled. See the beauty of that surrender to God, that both Mary and Joseph, their whole life, they had been faithful. And this moment, God says to them, I'm going to entrust you with this plan of salvation that I'm going to bring to the entire world. What's unique about them, what's distinctive about these two people is their surrender and their yes to God. And you know, you and I are making tons of decisions all throughout our lives. In fact, I read an article this week that said on a daily average, we make about 35,000 decisions per day. I don't know who counts those decisions, but that's a lot. And you think about how we say yes to some things and no to other things. And sometimes you say yes to like, you're going to get a new car and I'm getting this kind of car. That means you can't get another kind of car. That's also true. You get married to one person. You don't get to be with all the other people. Amen. Somebody said amen on that one. And when you say yes to one thing, you're saying no to others. And when you say no to one thing, you're saying yes to others. This is so important. So my message title today is My Best Yes. And what's the best yes that you can give? The best yes, my best yes, is always my yes to God. So the invitation from God through this story and the call of God on our lives to write a different kind of story at the core of a life that is written into the story of God is a life of surrender and obedience, a life of yes to God, saying yes over and over and over. And sometimes our challenge is that we want to say yes to God in the really big stuff, but oftentimes the really small decisions seemingly are the ones that lead to a life that is written into the story of God. So I want to give you a couple thoughts about saying yes to God from Mary Joseph's story and from my story as well. So first of all, saying yes to God doesn't always make sense. And what I love about seeing their story is as you consider the complexity of what they had to navigate. Now Joseph is giving up his reputation. Mary is giving up all of her future plans and laying them at the feet of God, saying, God, I surrender to you. And there are so many questions that undoubtedly would have gone through Mary's mind, and yet she says yes without all of the answers. And I think a lot of times for us when it comes to the future, we feel like we can't say yes to God and move into the future until we have all the answers. And God has this way of illuminating the big vision and the next step that we can take, but there's often so much between here and now and a bigger vision that God has. And God's yes that

he's inviting you into, there will always be uncertainty when you're living a life of obedience. There will always be things in our lives where God has to come through for us. When Stacey and I felt called to Saddleback in 22, there's so many questions we had. God, how are you going to work it out with the church we started? It's 14 years old. It's going to take a pastor there to lead that church. God, how are you going to do it with our kids? How are you going to take care of us as we look for a home and leave friends? All of that, and yet God invited us to say yes, to trust him when there are things that don't make sense. Saying yes to God comes with uncertainty, and God doesn't owe me or you answers to all the questions when he calls us to say yes. And the response is from Mary and Joseph, you have my surrender. The other part of this is that it costs. There's a cost to our yes to God. And what happens for many people is that in light of the cost, they choose a lesser path, a lesser story, and forget or don't notice the reality that there's a greater reward with the greater cost. So Mary and Joseph have been written into the forever story of God. And as the Bible says, from now on, generations will call Mary blessed. There's no one who's ever existed like Mary, who had the privilege of being the mother of Jesus and being at the cross when he was crucified and being a part of the whole journey of raising up God who brings salvation to the world. And the blessing came at a great cost. And then finally saying yes to God does not get easier when we delay. And there might be something in your life right now that if God is knocking on the door of your heart, there's a subtle part of you that says, God, I'm going to push that down the road a little bit. Maybe there's an area of your that God has been saying, I want you to surrender that addiction to me, that habit, that mindset. Maybe it's your pursuit of wealth. Maybe it's a relationship that God's asking you to give up. say at some point in the future, I'm going to respond in obedience. But what I've seen in my own life is that when I push it down the road, kick the can down the road, the delay does not actually make the obedience easier. It makes it much more difficult. I mean, maybe you've had a moment like this I have where I felt led to say sorry to somebody.

And I'm like, I'll say sorry when we have the perfect opportunity. Nobody else is around and I'll just apologize. And that moment never comes. It's a week later or two weeks later. And those moments of yes to God are so important that we obey right away when he puts the prompting on our heart. Could you imagine if Joseph had said to the angel, let me think about this for a couple of days? Like I need to kind of wrestle through if I'm going to obey. I love this verse, Psalm 119, verse 60. I will hasten and not delay to obey your commands. I want to be the kind of man, the kind of person that when God says yes, he can count on me to obey right away. And I want to be a part of a church that marches to the vision of God that when God calls us, we say yes. And that's been our history as a church family. And God's inviting a new generation of us to model and live lives of yes to him when he speaks, not delay. And we notice as we do this, that we receive and experience the reward on the backside. Now, the question for me personally is how do I do this on a practical level? Like how do I actually live on a day-to-day level? I don't have angels showing up, telling me to like go to another country with my kids.

And Joseph, his story is unique in God's calling, but you and I also have the same opportunity to respond to God and practically, two ideas I want to give to you. How do you give God your best yes? How do you respond as he stirs in your heart? And the first one is this, that my best yes from God starts with zooming out to get a bigger story, to see a bigger story. And sometimes when we're so focused on now, we miss the faithfulness of God. What I've noticed in my own life is that when I look back on God's faithfulness to my family, the way that I've seen him show up miraculously in so many moments, there's an increased confidence that he gives me for the future. So as we've been married now for 22 years, and we've been parents for over 19 years, Stacy, dare I say, has forced our family to take Christmas pictures every year. And it's a great act. I honor her for this great act of family pictures because she does way more work than I do. She's looking at finding a place to do the pictures, somebody to take the pictures, the outfits that we wear. And I remember there were so many years where I was like, babe, let's just skip a year. Nobody's gonna know.

We'll just send a card out two years from now, it'll be fine. Nobody will ever notice. And she's like, no, I wanna do it. Now today, we have a stack of cards from every year of our journey of having a family. And I want you to see a couple of these pictures here from our family. And what you'll notice is all through the years, different outfits, different seasons of life. But that top left one right there, what I remember with that one is that day, I thought, you know what, I'm gonna be a good dad and take a football with me to family pictures. And so I took the football, the photographer was late, and I was playing catch with Caedmon, and I said, hey, Caedmon, go long. So Caedmon goes long, and he dives for the football and gets mud all over his outfit. And Stacy right before that's trying to get all the mud off. Also in that family picture, Karis is crying. You can't tell when you look at it, but she's crying. It kind of looks like a smile. So we got it. We just said, put it on there, it looks like a smile. And all of these pictures, here's another slide. What they remind me is the faithfulness of God in every season of our life. It's been so good and kind to us. Times where we were at our wit's end,

but God came alongside, gave us the strength that we needed in the midst of pain and very difficult times. Times where God provided in ways that we could have never comprehend. God has been so good to me. And when I zoom out and I see, it gives me a confidence and a faith for the future to realize that God is writing a bigger story. God is writing a bigger story with your life. And he's inviting you to get a bigger vision, to look back and see his faithfulness. And he's writing a bigger story through our lives together as a church family. Now, one of the ways that he's been doing this is through all the different campuses that we have. as a church. And there's a beautiful story that God has woven together that starts with a guy by the name of Pastor Mark, who pastors a church in Lomita called Bay Church. This church has been around for a really long period of time, and Pastor Mark got it in his heart that as he approached his retirement, he said, I want this next season of my life to be the most fruitful season. And he then approached Saddleback and said, hey, would you guys consider taking us on and adopting us as a church to make us your Saddleback South Bay location? And I want you to hear his story of yes to God, and then we'll come back and talk about it together.

One of the incredible strong points of this church has always been, I have a really great giving spirit. This church has gone through many changes. It started in a bar, made into a church, and then that grew to a point that it was just completely overrun with people in the original building, and then they built this 600-seat auditorium in the 60s. Some of the people actually mortgaged their homes to get money out of their homes in order to support this ministry. First 10 years I was here, over 150 baptisms. We've seen a lot of people, one for Christ and also some of them going into ministry. We've done many community outreaches. We worked with community child in the area for unwed mothers. And we've also done different fundraisings for various things in the community. We've rebuilt the school lunchroom across the street. I really believe that what's going to happen next here is to build on the 82 years of history at the Bay Church, soon-to-be Saddleback South Bay. We started remodeling here, and we spent well over a million and a half dollars preparing the parking lot and the children's area and the chapel and a new office space and bathrooms. And now Saddleback's come and is working on completely remodeling the inside of the worship area here, and just really excited to see what we started here eight years ago

being finished up. And I think that what's the real heart of what I think God is going to be doing is to further the ministry of those who have come before us because they pray that this would be a huge, huge beacon of light in this area. When I was talking with Andy a few weeks ago, he asked me, what did I see as being the main thing I hoped for? And I said that we would have in this area the same kind of influence that Saddleback has had in Orange County. I really believe that Orange County is so much better off because of the ministry of Saddleback. And I believe that as this building is utilized and we will be able to further the gospel and the whole community has the potential of changing for the better. It's incredible. Now, I want you just to stop for a moment with me, all of our campuses, and realize the nature of this miracle that God is providing for our church family and the beauty of this story. All of these people throughout the church history of Bay Church, where they've sacrificed and they've said, we're gonna join with Saddleback to take what God's given to us and to open our hands to believe that God's gonna use this building to reach our community around us. Now, the South Bay campus has been praying for 10 years

for a building, and God has provided in such a beautiful way. If we as a church were to go buy a piece of land and were to build that building, it would cost our church about $20 million to build that building. And it was given to our church for free. That's incredible, with no mortgage. Y'all realize what I'm saying here? This is unbelievable. And so now, as we step into Dream Now and we renovate, we're still gonna invest in that. It's gonna take about $2 million to renovate that campus, and that's why we're doing the Dream Now year-end offering is to think about all of the people's lives that will be impacted as a result of this campus launching. Now, after our service earlier today, I had somebody walk up to me at the end of the service, get this, he is like 65 years old, roughly. He said, over 50 years ago, when I was 13 years old, I came to that church, I moved across the country, I went. To that church, I made a decision to follow Jesus at 13 years old and got baptized in that building. How cool is that story? And that's full circle. There are gonna be more stories like that of what God is going to do through our yes to him. The invitation is to say yes by zooming out and seeing how he's writing a bigger story.

Now, as we go back to the story of Mary and Joseph, notice how the angel that communicates with them says a couple of things. In Matthew 1, 21, as he's speaking to Joseph, he says, she will give birth to a son and you're to give him the name Jesus. Notice the vision, the dream in God's heart that he shares with Joseph, because he will save his people from their sins. So this baby that your story is connected to is the savior of the world. Same thing happens in Luke 1, verse 31. He's speaking to Mary and says, you will conceive and give birth to a son and you're to give him the name Jesus and he will be great and be called the son of the most high God and the Lord will give him the throne of his father, David, and he will reign over Jacob's descendants forever and his kingdom will never end. And the invitation is like, Joseph, Mary, you're a part of this story that will go from generation to generation. And if they could just see that the magnitude of the story that God was writing through their yes, the bigger vision, we're here today out of their obedience to God. And somebody today, as you're thinking about your life, there's a part of you that's holding on to your story. You're clutching your fist tightly and God's saying,

I have a bigger, better story that I wanna write through your life. So here's a question. In your life, where do you need to trust God in the future with your story? Maybe there's some area of your life that you feel like, I can't put it into God's hands yet, but there's an invitation. What part of your future do you need to place into God's hands today? And at the end of our time, I'm gonna give you that opportunity to respond and say, God, I'm placing my future into your hands. We zoom out to get a bigger vision, to see the context of a greater story. But finally, we also wanna zoom in to do the next right thing. We wanna actually come closer to realize that there's also a next step in light of a bigger vision that God gives to us. That there's a next step in your life today. Some of you, that next step is to go public with your faith and get baptized. Others of you, maybe there's somebody in your heart that God's been stirring to invite them to come to Christmas services. But there's that invitation that God gives to locate where you are and keep taking your next steps. And sometimes the biggest impact of our lives starts with the smallest next step, like Matthew 1, 24.

It says, Joseph woke up and he did what the angel of the Lord commanded him. That simple obedience that God uses to expand his kingdom, to carry out his plan through Joseph's life. Same with Mary, I am the Lord's servant, may it be unto me as the Lord has said. I surrender and I give you my yes. Now, one way for me on a personal level that I zoom in and I try to see, what is it that God is asking me to do right now? Here's a question that helps me. Who is in front of you right now that God wants you to love? Who's that person that God has placed in your sphere of influence right now that he's inviting you to give his kindness and his love? Now, this might be a neighbor on the street that you invest in a relationship and a friendship. I'm actually very excited because one of my friends that I've been investing in and hiking with and inviting to church for three years now told me that he's gonna come to our Christmas services at Saddleback. And you can clap for that, right now I'm gonna tell you a bad story. So let me give you a bad story. So I don't always love the people that are right in front of me. And on Monday night, I was coming home and I was actually on my way home, Stacy calls me and says,

hey babe, I'm out shopping with Karis. The boys are out, they're going somewhere. So you're at home by yourself and you should get yourself some dinner. So I went by, I got myself some tacos. I was on the way home. I was actually kind of excited. Like I'm going home, I'm gonna eat tacos and watch Monday night football by myself. Not as excited as I am about Christmas at Saddleback, but I was pretty giddy about this. So I'm on my way home, I get my tacos, I drive into my neighborhood. And as I'm pulling into my street, I look and there's a big pickup truck right in front of my house. And I'm like, who in the world, the lights are on, who in the world is like right in front of my house? And then I'm like, oh, that's the salesman that I told to come back on Monday, thinking he would never come back, but here he is. So I pull into the driveway and I'm like, man, what am I gonna do? So I pull back out of the driveway and start driving through the, true story. I'm not making this up. So I started driving through the neighborhood and finally I was, I don't know if it was the Holy Spirit or just this inner voice, a man voice inside of me that said, gird up your loins, go home.

Do not let a salesman drive you away from your house. So I drove back into my driveway, opened the garage, ran inside as fast as I could, closed the garage, and went into all the blinds and started closing the blinds throughout the house hoping he wouldn't come and see me. And then I turned on Monday Night Football as loud as I could and I'm listening to a podcast at the same time thinking maybe if he comes and knocks on the door, he'll hear the game and the podcast and just go away. And so he, sure enough, comes and knocks on the door and I hear it and I'm like, oh man, I am not answering that. I am so tired, I don't want to talk to a solar salesman tonight. And so I just sit there and watch the football game. And so finally, I don't know if it was just kind of like a deal with God, but I was like, if he knocks a second time and the dog gets up, I'll go. It's like a fleece test before the Lord. So sure enough, like 60 seconds later, bam, bam, bam, and mercy, our dog runs to the front door and I'm like, okay, I'll go open the door. So I go, I open the door. Sure enough, it's the solar salesman. He comes in for 30 minutes plus and we have a great conversation. And, you know, I internally was like so committed to not bringing this guy into my house and God did everything he could to keep,

like behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hears my voice, let him come and open. And that 30 minutes was not all about solar. It was about his life. It was about the struggles he's walking through as a family and it was about me just sharing my role in ministry and my desire for him to know the love of God and inviting him to church at Saddleback. And I almost missed a very, very clear opportunity that God was given to me. But by his grace, he opened that door. And there are people right in front of you. Maybe there are times where you miss it, like me. And yet God gives you a second opportunity and the invitation is to say, God, I give you my yes. I surrender what's in my hands to you. I wanna love those that are in front of me. There's somebody in your life God wants to use you to bring them to Christmas. Who's the person in front of you that he wants you to love? And then finally, the last question is, what's in your hands that God wants to use? Who's in front of me that God wants me to love and what's in my hands that God wants me to use? Now, in just a moment, we're gonna have an opportunity to respond to God in worship with what he's placed into our hands. And I want, very quickly, before we have a story of someone's life here at Saddleback that's been impacted, I wanna just make sure you have your envelope,

the Dream Now offering envelope, and I'll invite you to pull that out. And on the inside, you'll see there's a place where you can give back to God and make a commitment. Some of you, this'll be your commitment. You didn't get to join, you're new to Saddleback, you step into Dream Now with us. Those of you who've already been giving to Dream Now, I wanna say thank you for your faithful generosity. These stories are happening because of you. And there's a big dream and vision that God's calling us into that's gonna require all of us, and there are some of you, this is your invitation to respond to God for the very first time, to be a part of the story that God is riding through Saddleback. There are over 3,000 families this year that have started a journey of generosity for the very first time. This is a great opportunity. Some of you have made Dream Now commitments and you haven't yet started walking that commitment out. This is also a great opportunity to begin fulfilling that commitment to Dream Now. Now, as you do, as you prepare your hearts for this moment of worship, I want you to hear a very powerful story of a family from our church. Now, Eric and Carrie Buss have been a part of Saddleback for a long time. Carrie was in the march from the high school

to the Lake Forest property. That's how long they've been a part of our church family. They lead out small groups. Eric leads a small group for high school students. They've graduated now. Now he is being used by God in a very awesome way in our church family, and he's gonna share his story of opening his hands to God. Will you all please welcome Eric Buss as he comes to the stage? Well, hello, Saddleback family. I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to share our story. As we were preparing and just reflecting back on kind of our spiritual journey, we've been walking with Jesus from a very early age, it became very clear that there's a pattern that was persistent throughout that whole journey, and it's whenever we pause, we trust and listen to God, and then we say, yes, it's amazing what happens immediately after. Time and time again, God has been so faithful and consistent. whenever we just say yes to his will. And my wife and I learned this concept very early in our marriage. We got married fairly young. We were, you know, we'd been married for about 25 years and we were just out of college when we got married. And we, finances were not necessarily flush at that point in time.

We were living in the Bay Area, not an inexpensive place to live. And there was a few years that were very, very tight. One of the things though that we had done from the time we got married, it was week one of marriage, we committed to tithe every single week indefinitely. That was a non-negotiable for us. No way would we ever figure out how to pay it forward or do something different. We were all in on tithing. And there was a lot of months that were very, very tight for us. The, you know, Top Ramen, Mac and Cheese were standard fare in the bus house during those seasons. I remember vividly, there's about a two year period where we chose to do date night every Friday and more often than not, date night was, we were about a mile away from Costco. It was like walking to Costco, hot dogs, sodas, and free samples. And that was date night. Maybe some of you could relate to that. But we look back, some of the best times, but definitely tight. And there was a discomfort whenever we continued to financially, or put our faith in front of our finances. There was sometimes a discomfort. It was never easy.

And what we've learned is that whenever that discomfort kicks in and you kind of could feel it, that's God going to work on you. That's the open heart surgery that he's doing in your life, saying, you know, prioritize here. What's more important, finances or me and my will for you? And so, fast forward to Dream Now. You know, we heard Andy share the vision and the impact that we could have, not only in our local community, but globally with the Dream Now campaign. And my wife and I were like, hey, we're all in, let's go. So we chose to pray for a few weeks and figure out where we'd land at a financial offering. And we came back and we said, okay, well, here's the number. And we just sat with it and it didn't feel right. We felt like we were playing it safe. We weren't really leaning out in faith. And it's during that point in time, we said, you know what, let's reset. Let's take two weeks, go back and pray about it, and come back and see if God stirs something more interesting in our hearts. We did. I came back and I remember this day vividly. I was like, okay, so let me start.

Here's the number I think that God should, that we should be giving to God. And it was three times what we had originally said. Big gasp. And I love my wife. She looked at me and she goes, okay, let's go. I mean, didn't even hesitate. I was, and it was just blew my mind. And since that point in time, it's amazing. Just that one simple yes, it's amazing what God has opened up for us in the years since we did this. Not only financially has he continued to bless us, but more importantly, relationally and spiritually, God has completely opened up new doors that we never saw coming and we couldn't even imagine. We've been praying for a small group that we can get involved in and do life with. And he literally dropped like the best small group right in our lap within like two or three weeks of our commitment. And now they're some of our closest friends. We do life together and they've been instrumental as we've been, as our kids have been moving out of high school into college and our life is looking very different. They've led that and they're teaching us how to think about it and how to adjust. We've also brought a women's small group into my wife's life. A bunch of men that I've been doing life with

for the last year, absolutely invaluable. And it all started with a simple yes. And so as you're hearing this story and if there's anything stern inside of you or if you've been here for a while and campaigns have come and gone and you've contributed a little bit here and there, but you're thinking about really diving in and seeing what God has in store for this church and the impact that this church could have. That's probably God working on you a little bit, doing a little heart surgery there. And for some of you, this story may be a little foreign. You know, fairly new to the church or never been part of a giving campaign. To be honest, it just starts with a simple yes and one foot in front of the other. Just one step forward and let God take it from there. We call that point in time when we had to say yes and really go three acts in on what we said, we called it the monkey bars. Because what we learned is that, I'm going back to elementary school, with monkey bars, you hold on to two monkey bars but you can't move to the next one until you let go of the one that you're on. And sometimes it just takes a big let go and then you finally see what God had all along in store for you. So maybe I urge you that if this is stirring in you at all,

ask God what that monkey bar is. What is that thing that I need to let go of in order for me to understand and see the full blessings that you could have for our lives? So anyway, I appreciate you letting me share and thank you, Andy, for the vision and dream now. Thanks. It's great to see you here. Thank you. You know, I hope for you as you hear Eric's story and what God's doing in South Bay in this brand new location, and even just seeing the pictures of people that are being impacted by our church family, that your heart is stirred and you realize this is an invitation. It's an opportunity for us to respond to God and be involved in what God is doing on planet Earth. And so in just a moment, as the band leads us, we're gonna worship God with our dream now year-end offering and you can drop that envelope in as the buckets go by. And this is an act of worship. And I wanna say thank you for being obedient to God. You know, this beautiful moment of renovating this church facility, it's gonna take all of us. Feeding close to 50,000 families, giving away gifts. You know, somebody said, how do I know how much I can do to make a difference? And one family, to feed one family for a month

is about $200. So you think about if we are in the place to give, to help those families, God calls us and invites us to serve and to love. And I know that God has a number for you. Many of you guys have been praying about that. But my hope, more importantly than amount, is just that you would be a part of what God's doing, the greater story that he's writing through our church family in our day. And there are gonna be so many beautiful things that God brings out of this next season. There are gonna be changed lives at Christmas because of your yes to Jesus and invitation. There are gonna be people at this new South Bay location that generations are impacted. There are gonna be families that we're serving and giving meals to that are gonna come to faith in Jesus and stories will forever be different because of you. And so as we pray and as we respond, I wanna just invite you to join in with your worship to give your offering as an act of saying, thank you, God, for your faithfulness. I'm gonna pray and that at all of our campuses, there'll be some buckets that go by and we're gonna hear a beautiful song of God's faithfulness, of Mary responding to the voice of God. And I pray your heart is stirred as we respond in this moment. Lord, we thank you for your goodness.

Thank you for your faithfulness. As we worship now, I pray, Lord, that you would just move inside of us, Lord, that as we give our offerings, that you would take our yes and use them to bless families in need, to help launch this new campus. Lord, we are so grateful and we pray these things in Jesus' name, amen, amen. ♪ Mary, did you know that your baby boy ♪ Would one day walk on water ♪ Mary, did you know that your baby boy ♪ Would save our sons and daughters ♪ Mary, did you know that your baby boy ♪ Did you know that your baby boy ♪ Has come to make you new ♪ This child that you delivered ♪ Will soon deliver you ♪ Mary, did you know that your baby boy ♪ Would give sight to a blind man ♪ Mary, did you know that your baby boy ♪ Would calm the storm with his hand ♪ Did you know that your baby boy ♪ Has walked where angels trod ♪ When you kiss your little baby ♪ You kiss the face of God ♪ Mary, did you know ♪ Did you know ♪ The blind will see and the deaf will hear ♪ And the dead will live again ♪ The lame will leap, the mute will speak

♪ The praises of the Lamb ♪ The blind will see, the deaf will hear ♪ And the dead will live again ♪ The lame will leap, and the mute will speak ♪ The praises of the Lamb of the land. Mary, did you know that your baby boy was Lord of all creation? Mary, did you know that your baby boy would one day rule the nations? Did you know that your baby boy is heaven's perfect lamb? The sleeping child you're holding is the great I Am. Mary, did you know? Did you know? Did you know? Mary, did you know? Well, what a great time of worship together. And I love getting to hear of how God is moving in and through our church family. And I'm so grateful that so many of you are a part of it as well. And if there's anything that you need prayer for that maybe stirred up in your heart during this message, we would love to be praying for you. Or if there's a different next step that you might want to take in helping you to grow in your faith, we would love to be helping you take that step as well. So you can let us know by clicking the link in the description, or you can open our Saddleback app and let us know that way as well. Church family, we love you so much and we hope to see you again next week for our Christmas service.