And peace to you saints who are in the land and you future saints who are in the land of Christ the King.

Grace to you and peace. We're supposed to greet one another like that. Grace and peace to one another. That's how Paul greeted the people. Now, when we meet people, most of the time, we, some people say, Hello. Hello. That came from the Roman, Hail. You know what that means? It means health to you.

That's how we're supposed to greet one another. Now, we've fallen into a habit, at least around here, when we greet people, we say, how are ya? And we don't even care how people are. We just greet people. In fact, when I'm out and about the neighborhood and I stop and see people and they asked me, how are you?

I say, you want to know the truth, or you want me to lie to you. Or you don't even know me. You don't care. And I love the response because the men, when they respond that night, they don't care. They say, you're right. We don't care, but the gals go, oh, I care. I tell me the truth.

Isn't that it? I love that. Why? Because God made women to be the caregivers. Whoa. I love that. Greet one another. And then it was a holy kiss. Now, for those of you who are around here, parents, thank you. Okay. When I greet people here, I laughingly go I greet you with a holy kiss and I hand them a chocolate kiss and say, you've been kissed.

Now when I used to go to Ukraine back in the early nineties, when the wall first fell the minister, the missionary who was over there warned us that Ukrainian Christian men, when they greet one another. They greet each other with a kiss on the lips. I still have a crink in my neck. Doing this thing, but parents I want to thank you. Thank you because I do pass out chocolate to your children. Okay, Jesus had suffered the little children that come unto me. Now I do that, and often times if they're older I throw it to them. And if they miss it. They don't get it and the little kids I hold out a hand and I see pick a hand and if they pick the wrong hand, they get a tickle now I also I asked him a question every morning as they all gather around, I asked him a question What one thing do you know?

What one thing do you know? Some of them say if I miss it, I don't get it. Other ones if I don't pick the right hand, I get a tickle some people say You love me. Now, I do love you, but that's not the answer. What's the answer? Gods for me. I want these young children to know this is a safe place. They come here to be loved and protected and doted on and for them to know God loves them.

That's the answer. Gods for them. So, you know, the ones who, the new ones coming in, they have no clue, but they get the clue. God is for them. Saints who are in the land. That's who you are. Saints. Now, how do I know that? Am I liking the guy over there in the Vatican and I got this observant, the spiritual observatory and I got this telescope, and I look up into heaven and I go, Oh, there's Peter.

Okay. He's a saint. Oh, look, there's no, you're a saint. Oh, Hagia, a holy one, Hagia, a holy one. A holy one. You've been taught that it means set apart. Set apart. The Greek word has the meaning of to be used for its design purpose. Isn't that good? Haggai is a saint. You didn't earn it. You can't deserve it.

You don't do some miracle to do it. No. It's done to you by what Jesus did for you at the cross. When you believed on him, he made you, his saint. You don't earn your salvation. It's a gift. You receive it. You don't earn your sainthood. It's a gift. It's a gift. You're a saint. And just, I want you to know God is not up there You know, looking down on who he can crush, who can beat up.

No, you are favored of the Lord. If you want a title for today it comes from Isaiah 61, three and four, and it comes from Luke four, 16 through 20. And Jesus came and said to declare the year of the Lord's favor. When God looks upon you, he's like these new young parents. Look at Gex Williams and Rachel Williams at their faces when they look at their baby.

Oh, this is my That's how God looks at you are favored of the Lord now I Gotta tell you I Can't tell you I told Michael I would be done by four o'clock. So, you would have time to go home and get something to eat and then come back for the meeting. But I want you to know, so God loved to call himself the God of Jacob.

Don't you love that? Why did he do that to give you and I hope? Jacob was a scoundrel. Jacob was a scam. You didn't want to go into business with Jacob. You'd lose everything. But he calls himself the God of Jacob. Why? Because that's what God calls us. We tell, we told CNN this morning, we're sinners.

Now we're not sinners. That's not our identity. We're saints who sin though. Okay. We're saints who sin. And we're all, we've all been there lying and falling down and not measuring up. We've been we're misfits. Don't you love that Christmas story about Misfit Isle? You know where all the misfit toys go?

That's what the church is! A bunch of misfits! The God is the God of misfits. The God of ragamuffins. Doesn't that give you hope? It does me. Now, when I used to deal drugs When I came home from Vietnam, In the 70s I became a drug addict and an alcoholic, and I used to deal drugs. And when friends would come over, they'd go, you got any good stuff?

I always save the good stuff for my friends. This is the good stuff. Okay. I'm about to give you the good stuff. Grow in the grace, grow in the favor and knowledge. Of our Lord Jesus Christ. Do we have I do we have the rest of it up there?

Is it up there yet Luke? Is it behind me yet?

Can we put up Luke 4?

Okay, let me read this to you Luke 4 So when Jesus came to Nazareth where he was brought up and as was his custom, he went into this custom. He went into the synagogue and on the Sabbath day, he stood up to read and he took the scroll that was handed to him. And when he rolled it to the place where he won it, he opened it, and he read the spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach the good news to the poor.

He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind. And re and recovery of the sight to the blind. To set at liberty those who are oppressed, to preach the year of the Lord's favor. The year of the Lord's favor. This is the end of 24, the beginning of 25.

The year in Hebrew and Greek, it means the same thing. It means an extended time. It means an era. It means a season. Jesus said, this has been fulfilled. This is not a 365 day at the end of next year. It's the end of the season of the Lord. No, you and I are in the season of the favor of the Lord. Listen, this is one favored church.

We are, we have been favored by God. Now again, when Jesus said this, he said, I have been anointed with this in his manliness. Now he was God in the flesh, but in his manliness and his total manliness, it says the spirit of God anointed him to preach the good news. In other words, he was enthusiastic. He was enthusiastic.

He preached it with enthusiasm. Enthusiastic means EN in the Greek and the Latin in is in what? Theos in the spirit. Aren't you glad that Michael preaches enthusiastically? He, amen. He preaches in the spirit enthusiasm that should be the mark of every one of our lives. You too have been filled with the spirit, and when you speak.

You're supposed to speak enthusiastically. You're supposed to live your life enthusiastically.

This is good. If I was out there, I'd be taking notes.

Let's pray.

Now, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart give you pleasure. Oh Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Amen.

You want to put up that Calvin picture for me?

Calvin and Hobbes. Named Calvin. Because he named it after John Calvin. And Hobbes, after the 15th century British social and philosophical and political philosopher, Thomas Hobbes. So, you had both there. You had the Calvinism, and you had the Arminianism, if you would. And he named it. And I really believe Bill Waterson used my life as a child for a picture of Calvin.

Yeah. It's spot on, but this is how most people believe that God's out to get them. That's why they got troubles in their lives. Somebody's up there out to get me. Let me tell you something. Even this morning, even those of you who've come to Christ already, God is still out to get you to be a begotten son.

You've been gotten by God. Why? Why? Now, again, Saints in the land, it says when I started Saints in a Land, you're set apart for what? What are we set apart for? For God's glory to shine through us. For God's glory to shine through us by doing our good works. You don't earn salvation by your good works.

No. That's your fruit, that, your fruitfulness, that you've been given fruit to what? To give God glory that other people would see you. By the way, you know what the word blessed means? It means to be envied. We are so blessed that other people, lost people, are so envy of us that they want what we've got.

What do we get? We've got a savior who loves us, who's changed us and morphed us, as we read before here, into his temple, into the, Michael told me if I was going to preach this morning, I had to dress right. So, I did. I got up this morning, I put on Christ. Isn't what, isn't that what the Bible says?

Put on Christ? That's what we're all supposed to be doing, put on Christ. Now when that happens, when we do this the Christmas story tells us that God's good will for us. Behold, I bring you good tidings and I bring you a message of God's goodness and what he did here in this Sermon that he gave.

This was the first sermon. I know Matthew says the Sermon on the Mount, but Luke says that when Jesus came out of the desert and he was filled with the Holy Spirit because he'd gone through trials, he came, and he said to that he was going to give us good tidings and his will for us is good. But then he says we are favored.

Remember what he said to Mary, the angel? Remember what the angel said to Mary? Favored of the Lord, favored of the Lord, and it terrified her. Now when God favors us, that doesn't mean you're going to have a life without problems. That doesn't mean you're going to have a life without tribulations or struggles or obstacles to overcome.

In fact, it's the opposite of that. Because he said to Mary, the angel did, favored of the Lord. And a sore shall pierce your heart. Every mother in this room knows the truth of that statement. Every mother in this room knows the truth of the joy of being favored by God and bearing a child. Amen. And the sword that pierces us, every one of us knows that.

So, when you're favored of the Lord, doesn't mean you're going to have problems, but he says, what be of good cheer. I've overcome the world in this world. You shall have tribulations but be of good cheer. I have overcome the word of the world. Now he also comes, and he says, and I love this to bind up the broken heart.

The bind up the broken heart. Every human being in this life has been broken hearted somehow through a death. of a loved one through a divorce, through being oppressed by evil men, by being betrayed by those who we thought were our friends. Every one of us understands that brokenness. Several, about several years ago, two or three years ago, I was crossing my creek, got a creek in my backyard, and I was jumping from one rock to another.

I still think I'm 40 years old, folks. Okay? And I jumped across that creek, and I tore my hamstring. God loves abstract art. My leg got this big, I'm not exaggerating, and it was purples and greens, and it was gorgeous. And for me to function, I had to wrap that sucker up. Or else I couldn't move.

Now, many of, we play racquetball, I play racquetball with some of these young rest scallions, they're not, by the way, these are not nice guys. Okay. Tom Cantwell, I love him, you think at my age, now I'm 73 years old, I'm 45 years older than most of these guys, you think they'd spot me a couple of points, no, Alex here, you think he's this gentle, nice giant.

He is so competitive. He's pushing me around, banging me into, you need to pray for that man. Again, so right now I have to have my leg wrapped up, okay, in order for me to walk. Jesus said, I have come to bind up the broken heart. How does he do that? By binding our hearts to his.

That's how he does that. Jesus understands our pain, our agony to suffer everything we suffered, and he binds our heart with his. And according to Colossians, Paul's prayer to the Colossians and to us is that our hearts would be knit together in Christian love. How do we heal? How does he heal the brokenhearted?

By you truly caring for others and binding your hearts to theirs. That's how the, that's how the earth works. Bound up? That's how they're bound up. Now he also came, and it says it twice, he came at liberty to set those free from prison. We were prisoners. We were enslaved to sin and to Satan. We were enslaved to that.

And Jesus said, I've come to open up the gate. You're no longer a slave to Satan. He also says, I've come to set at liberty, the oppressed. We have all been oppressed and he came to set us at liberty. And you know what that means? That, that song what's his name sings, Tom. You're not a refugee.

You're not a refugee. Yeah, you've been kicked and beaten and pushed aside, but you're not a refugee. What are you? We're sons. We're daughters. We've been brought into the royal family. What's that mean? Man, you're a prince. Ladies, you're princesses. That's who you are. You are children of God. We're not refugees.

We don't walk around and say, Oh man, life's tough. How's it going? Oh, it's going like hell. No, it's going like heaven. We're sons and daughters of the king to be set at liberty. Now the recovery. Oh, and I love this. It says the recovery of the blind, not just the physical blind, but the spiritual blind.

We were all blinded by Satan and blinded by sin. And Jesus came to take the scales off, to take the, the, to open up the, what says the eyes of the heart, the eyes of the inner man, what, how, what he wants us to see, he wants us to see who God really is. He wants us to see who Jesus really is. And he wants us to see life as it really is.

And he wants to see ourselves. As we really are. He reminds us there in Ephesians 1 15 through 18 and following what the very power that raised Jesus from the grave is at work in you and me, that's the favor of the Lord. He came and favored us with sight to see things, to see what another is. We, that's how we're supposed to interact with one another, seeing one another as they truly are children of God.

And then, through all this, excuse me, Jesus gave this kingly proclamation to proclaim, to declare the year of the Lord's favor. We have been favored by God. Years ago, I read a book by Roger Von Eck, and it was called A Whack in the Side of the Head. It was a great book.

It's about how to think rightly, how to have, how to set this mindset. This morning, I want you to take this as a whack in the side of the head, or if you prefer a kick in the seat of your spiritual bridges, okay? A whack in the side of your head to think properly, to believe that you are favored by God.

Now, I got to tell you, truthfully, I am in awe, astonished. At the maturity and the strength. Now mostly I'm speaking about the young men that I'm in contact with. Young men, you are the godliest men I've met and located in a church. God has gifted this with so many of you. You're so well indoctrinated.

You're so well trained and taught and you're strong in the Lord. Go stronger, do what Tom said. Get in the word, meditate on the word, do the things that it takes. It says to grow strong. That's our goal in life to grow strong. How do you grow strong in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ?

Amen. How do you grow strong? By doing it. Let me tell you something. Why is Michael becoming a better teacher almost every Sunday he gets up? Because he's, how he's growing strong. Why? Because he's talking it, he's preaching it, he's doing it, he's teaching it. He's all over the place. He's writing it. He's working his gift.

Please hear this. You have been gifted with a superpower. Now, some of you are already using that superpower. Man, I'll tell you what, go over to the Oreos. They have that superpower of hospitality. Go over here to the E Migs. They have that superpower of hospitality. They've got it. They've got it.

And many of you, also, you've got the superpower. Grow in it, use it, continue to do it. God's given us, when Jesus went to the party in the heaven, your party favors, when you go to a party and a wedding and they give you a party favors, Jesus on the way up to heaven, it says he gave party gifts, partying gifts, if you were to the church, he gave us gifts, superpower gifts.

What superpower would you choose to have? Paul lists all those superpowers that he gave us. He gave, oh, by the way. You are grace gifts to this church. You've been gifted by God to gift this church. To what? To build up one another. So, grace gifts, he gave us, it says he gave us pastors and preachers and leaders.

For what? For the church. They're our gift to us. What are you supposed to do with the gift? You're supposed to thank them for it. You're supposed to pray for them to keep using it greater and greater, okay? The more you do the gift, the greater you grow. Now we're supposed to give gifts, and it says, I'm not going to read it right now, but you go home and read Isaiah, read the whole chapter, Isaiah 61. It says there in about verse 3 and 4 that he's done all this, and Jesus didn't stop, Jesus stopped there. But he said that he made us oaks of righteousness is what would normally transfer it. The Hebrew word and the Greek word and the Septuagint mean the same thing.

It just means great tree. He's made us great trees. Now we're different kinds of trees. We have different kinds of fruit. Some of you have been gifted with the gift of helps, the gift of wisdom, the gift of faith is that's a gift. The gift of mercy. Those are all gifts. The gift of encouragement.

Use that gift. Okay. Some of you have been gifted, your trees of your money trees, you are your money trees. What you've been gifted with generosity, and you give, and you give, let me, many of you are like this in this. This fund to raise it for this new building What you know you have given and given your generosity why because you believe what it says god's going to meet all your needs God's going to take god's going to re restore your vault.

Okay, but you're generous you're God Please continue to do that some of you. Okay, you all know what my gift is. It's to whack you upside the head my gift is encouragement That's what my gift is, okay? And I love that gift. I have a good day, if I encourage one person. That's a good day, but again, you gotta work it. Now, what else? Okay, so part of this, I might go ask for an outline. Guys, I am not, some of you are smiling at me. I am not a Western preacher. Okay? Western occidental and oriental, occidental preachers, they come from Aristotle, and they come from the Roman, you got this propositional statement, and then you say what you're gonna preach about, and then you've got the, these sub points, and then you got the, four, one, three, three, four points and all that. I almost funked out of preaching school, okay? I'm an accidental preacher, okay?

I'm an oriental accidental preacher. When I went to Bible, the seminary, I didn't go to be a pastor. I went because I didn't know, I didn't know, I never read the Bible. I was working at UPS full time. I was working as a full-time student and I'm going just I took every Bible class I could at that time my career was set I was the district guy here at UPS I did You know, they call it human resources now.

I was a personnel guy for their district So I did all that men for you know for Southwest, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and my career was set they wanted me to go up to Columbus and You know be that the regional guy up there And then I had an accident, God whacked me upside the head and said, no I'm calling you to be a preacher.

I'm calling you to be a pastor. So, I'm an accident preacher. Okay. And I can't do this. Michael asked for an outline, and I went, I worked on this. I tried to work on this outline, and I came out and said, Bobby, I finally sent Michael that outline. And she said, I'm proud of you, she said, I know I'm not preaching, that's okay.

You did an outline. It wasn't a very good outline, was it? He looked at that thing and said OKAY, I guess that what, that's what we'll do now again. How do we grow? How do we grow? Okay. We grow by imitating those who are growing. Those who are there. I tell the young guys in this group that I've got, I tell them.

Follow the Cantwell's example. And the Cantwell's, I told him, I told Tom that he said, don't tell him that tell him to follow Wade's example. I follow Wade's and that's right. Follow the Di Iorio's how they raised their children. Follow the Williams, both of them. The J and J, J3rd, J4th, J5th, whatever you are.

But anyway, the way they're raising their children, you follow that. Why? Because they're living biblically. The father's the head of the household. The father's the patriarch. The wife is the queen of the house. Okay? And there's this working together to raise these kids. How are they raising the kids?

I told Michael, I complimented him the other day. I love him because he loves you. A shepherd is supposed to know his flock, so he knows how to feed the flock and how to feed the flock seasonally. And that word is that word is seasonal. He's preaching to us. He's sharing his heart with us.

About what? About the season of the year that our country is in. About being a man of God, about, and he says, yeah, listen, you want to grow, follow their example, please. Paul said, follow my example. Follow me. Mimic me. Mimic me. You want to grow in your faith and grace, and you want to grow in your favor of the Lord, follow their example.

And then it says this, now again, what this, the favor of God is upon us. How much time do I have? Where am I at in my time? I don't even know. I'm not a, I'm an Indian kind of guy, Indians, and some of you are like that too. Indians, they never come to a service early.

Okay? They just meander in. Sometimes there, they come, and they stay for two, three hours. So, I think I got three hours left. Okay. Psalm 44. Now we're supposed to go into the land and conquer it. We're supposed to assail the gates of hell. Okay. And conquer it. And Michael put up a text the other week.

And it was I think it was Exodus 18. And all the people there in the desert where they gave the commands when Moses came up. And all the people said, we’ll obey the commands! We'll obey the commands! And they didn't. And they died in the desert. But their sons did. Their sons did. Their sons did what it says in, you want to grow in your grace and knowledge.

The Bible tells us as we go into warfare, Meditate on the Torah, the whole counsel of God. Meditate on the word of God, day and night. Meditate on it, then you will be prosperous, then you will be successful, then your way will be established. Meditate on, what's it, the first thing you get up in the morning, before you even roll out of bed, Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

Oh God, I'm so thankful we call you Father. Please your will be done in my life. Oh god, forgive me. Help me to forgive others your kingdom. Come your kingdom Come that's good before you even get out of bed. And then what do you do the first thing in the morning? You do what David did you do what Jesus did the first thing in the morning you get alone in your Closet in your inner sanctum in your inner man, and you meditate on the Word of God That's how you grow strong and you okay, but it says what you see you observe these things you look at them But you don't become like the people coming out of desert.

You are more like the people that Psalm 44 is about okay. Psalm 44 is all about it What? It says you do it, you do your gift, you obey God, you encourage other people, you help other people. It says you were designed, before the world began, for good works. You gotta work at it, you gotta, I love what they call lawyers and dentists, they're practicing.

They're practicing. Perfect practice makes perfect games. We're supposed to practice our gifts. Daily practice our gifts daily. So, Psalm 44. This is a contemplation. This is a meditation We have heard with our ears. Oh, it's Elohim the trinity Our fathers have told us what deeds you did in their days In the days of old how you drove out the nations with your hand and how you planted them And how you afflicted the peoples and cast them out for they did not gain possession of the land by their own sword, nor did their own arm save them.

But it was your right hand, your arm, and the light of your countenance because you favored them because you favored them. God is growing this church because he favors us. We're going to go through some battles. We're going to go through some struggles, the Bible says, I don't know if I should share this with you right now, but I think I will, I'm glad this week's over.

Okay. I haven't been sleeping well at all. Psalm 16 has been beating me up. It says give thanks to the Lord for, and it says, because you're You know in the middle of the night and the night watches you counsel me My mind instructs me in the night when I preach and I did this for 30 years Your mind Roll in my mind at night, you know when you meditate on work, it's rolling in your heart and you get these great thoughts and I have to turn on the light write them down and so for finally Bobby said please quit turn the light On I hit it.

I had to start writing it in the dark You Hieroglyphics, couldn't read that either. My mind instructs me tonight, so all this week. I'm dreaming about how to share this with you, how to share this great message with you that Jesus loves you, Jesus saves you, Jesus wants to work through you. It says the favor of the Lord brought them their victories, the favor of God in us, bringing us our victories.

And so how, and so in the middle of the night this week, it says the old man shall dream dreams. I had this dream. Okay. And you gotta be careful who you share your dreams with. I'm going to share it with you anyway I had this dream and I, how do I explain this to you? Okay. In Vietnam, during the Tet, they would take us out of the jungle.

They took my, I had a recon squad. They'd take my recon squad, and they put us up in these towers, ooh, the watch towers, and you got two guys up there and you got sandbags down below. And at night you got two on the watch and you're looking for the enemy. At night, you'd have searchlights.

And the searchlights were these big, powerful lights and they would be shining, and they go, and you're looking for moving things. This is that kind of light. I'm sleeping, but I see this light beaming upward. And it's all over binging them upward from Fort Thomas from the new location.

And as I'm seeing this, I'm seeing streams. Streams of people coming to the light, coming to the light. Let your light so shine before men. I told Michael this several times, that church bailing ain't big enough. That's true. Now, Paul also says, how do you get, how do you get spiritual gifts? Yeah. Ask for them.

Yeah. Ask for him. Who has what does the Bible tell us? The humble shall receive grace. The humble shall receive favor. The humble shall see that favor. And Paul says in, I think it's in somewhere around 31 and following, and then it goes into 14. And he says, Great desire the greater gifts.

What are the greater gifts? If you see the list of them, they're all speaking. They're all speaking gifts. You pray. I ask people to pray for me. Amen. That I would have an anointed tongue that I would speak to you the words of God That's what these are and my prayer for you is that you would desire the greater gifts The tongue is the most powerful they say muscle in the mouth When it's anointed by the Spirit the Bible says in Proverbs.

I read Proverbs 12, especially but 15 has it three times a Healing tongue a wholesome tongue. It's a tree of life God wants your super powered tongue to be a tree of life to others, to bring them to salvation and to build them up in Christ Jesus our Lord. Now, oh Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart, I pray Lord that they have brought you pleasure.

In Jesus's name.