The Conquering Child

It's good to have you here. My name is Carl Clausen. I'm the lead pastor of 180 Chicago, and I'm here two weeks back to back. It's a miracle, and I'm thrilled to be down here with you today. Ajit's preaching the same text up north, and we are some kind of fired up. Oh, my goodness. I have got to put on my track shoes because I've got some ground to cover. Let's pray together right now as we bust into the Word of God. Father, thank you for this day that you've made. And I thank you that in true to the text, it is Christmas every day for those who are in Christ Jesus. Lord, help us to celebrate this season really well. And as Summer was saying, help us to bust through the stuff that we feel like, oh, I don't want to carry this anymore. And I feel as a result of this message today, you are going to lighten the load of a lot of people in this room and those online. We thank you for each person here and from afar. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Well, today I've got a standalone message, and I got to spike this for you. The direct application of this message is going to be on Christmas Eve, so sojourn out, and I'm going to be bold. If you don't have wheels and you need to take Uber, Ajit's going to pay for it. I'm signing him up right now. Because I want no one not making it out there. You've got to get to the Burbs. It's going to be a celebration and a half. We're going to have an incredible time celebrating as a family. We feel like we're going to get on the edge of the fire code for the room. And that's awesome, isn't it? To come on the edge of breaking rules like that. Isn't that great? So you're going to want to be there. The conquering child. Has he fully conquered? No. But has he conquered in this earthly kingdom in a way that maybe we've underestimated what he wants to do? And the answer is a resounding yes. All we have to do is look at a prophecy in Isaiah chapter 9. Look at this with me. For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the greatness of his government and peace, there will be no end. He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish it. I went moose hunting with my dad when I was a little guy, and we were in these converted Volkswagen Bugs. Now, it was wild because we stripped off all the metal cowling of the Volkswagen, and we actually welded on, not we, but some guys that we were hunting with, welded on dualies So you got dual wheels on the back end of these what became tundra buggies. And we'd put chains on those dualies. And we got those little Volkswagen engines. And guys, we are out there in the middle of, it's mile 99 on the Richardson Highway, if you ever want to go there. And we were up and over ravines. And I mean, these things could go through anything, deep swamp bogs. I mean, it was awesome. But there came a time when we couldn't go any further with our little swamp buggies, and so we had to get on foot. And I didn't know what it is that I had to carry as we were going on foot, but I was an aggressive young man, so I'm like, load it up. And I didn't know how much weight I was carrying until we got about two miles into this hike. And we're starting to glass the horizon for any big bull moose that are out there. But as I'm walking, I'm like, oh my goodness, how far are we going? I looked at my dad. I go, hey, how much more hiking do we have? He said, probably another five miles in before we get to where we're going. And I'm thinking to myself, this is a problem. So I didn't say anything to my dad. And about two more miles of hiking, we had old gear back then. We didn't have any waist clips like on the new Kelty packs and all that that was putting the weight on our hips. It was all on my shoulders. And I'm walking along. And pretty quick, my dad looked over at me. He goes, how are you doing? I said, dad, I'm not doing well. And he said, well, what do you got in the pack? And he looked inside and he goes, oh son, we're not taking canned goods on this little hike today. I had loaded up corn and beans and all this food and frozen foods and I had loaded this pack up. I was carrying about 70 pounds of gear on my 85 pound body. And I'm like, What are we going to do? He said, well, we can't leave it because there might be some bear around here. So I'm going to take this thing for you. And my dad threw that thing up on his back and we went hunting. It could be that you're shouldering things here today that the father does not want you to shoulder. No, I need you to hear me. This is not a pipe dream I'm gonna give you. We are gonna look and parse out some of this text that I just put on the screen in a way that will allow you to understand it is Christmas every day in the kingdom of God. We have so diminished the celebration of the birth of Jesus. And I'm more animated about Christmas than ever just because of this text. But I need you to hear me today when I say this. Could it be that you are shouldering things in your life that the conquering child never intended for you to shoulder? Now you can't understand this passage in Isaiah without understanding the broader context of the passage. All of Isaiah 7 through 11 is messianic prophecy. Isaiah's speaking about things that are gonna unfold then and then later, hundreds of years later, when Jesus would come. And it's this mirroring effect that you begin to see something that is so profound. I want to come and plop down into the seat right next to every one of you and go, listen to me. So let me just say this right now. Listen to me. Any text out of context is not only pretext. We miss the meaning of what Jesus has for us here. In Isaiah 9, so this is in this same chapter, but... Actually, just a couple of verses before it, let me read you a couple of things. For the yoke of his burden and the staff of his shoulder and the rod of the oppressor you have broken as on the day of Midian. Now, I just read that to you. The word yoke is used there, super important. You gotta get this. The yoke is broken. The weight has come off shoulders, as in the day of Midian. Now you gotta ask the question, well, what's going on? Well, it's a reference to Gideon's army of 300, as Jim Coakley and I were talking before the service, Very incapable guys. The army had shrunk down from 30-some thousand to 300 people, and God tells Gideon, you're gonna win this. What's the principle here? The yoke is broken miraculously. It has nothing to do with our chariots or horses. And there's a lot of you that have trusted your chariots or horses. The money that you can make, the fancy footwork you have, the wisdom that you think you've gained over time. Here's what I need you to know. The conquering child is breaking yokes then and now. And it's a prophecy of the yoke that would be broken, but it's not just there. If you go on, it's not going to be on the screen. Isaiah 10, verse 27 says, And in that day his burden will depart from your shoulder and his yoke from your neck. and the yoke will be broken because of the fat. Now, if you read that normally, you'd go, wow, a yoke is broken because of fat. Fat and oil are interchangeable words in this Hebrew word, and it just simply means through God's holy provision, the stuff that you're shouldering will be broken. Now what was happening at that time is that the Assyrians had gotten really strong and they had conquered the northern reaches of Israel. And ultimately God's prophecy would bear out in that time in that Jerusalem would not be sacked by the Assyrians and that provision of protection was brought to you by God himself. But he's using that storyline to illustrate this is what the Messiah would do. Simply meaning when the chips are down, when there seems like there's no way forward, The Messiah, the Deliverer, will come. And He will break the yoke. The oil and the fat of God's provision will shatter that yoke. In fact, in the Hebrew, the yoke will be rotted. It means that what you're carrying does not need to be carried. It's Christmas every day for Christ's followers. And I'm not overstating that. I get chills right now thinking about this reality. I've called multiple people about this text because I think I've preached it before, but I've never looked at the contextual analysis more deeply as I did this last week to see, my goodness. Now, Could it be, and in fact was the case, that in Matthew 11, Jesus is making reference back to the prophecy of Isaiah when he says, Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden. Take my yoke upon you. And learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Whoa. This is huge. I need you to hear me. This is huge. The coming of Jesus, the Messiah, is that he is the yoke breaker. He breaks it. Isaiah 9 is a prophecy of the unmatched, unparalleled capacity of Christ to live and operate in this world in a way that is extraordinary. And how men and women who surrender to his leadership experience this capacity of Christ at work in their life. Remember what Greg Dempster said just a couple of weeks ago if you were here? If you want to experience spiritual renewal, you've got to know that you've got to come to the throne room of, I will do it for you. And there's so many of us that are trying to, and this is what we're having to kind of retrain ourselves to understand, that it's not about our ability to change our life. We can do nothing apart from him. We can do nothing. Apart from him we can do nothing. And that's found in John 15 when Jesus was talking to his disciples and saying, I'm the vine, you're the branch. We have a hard time getting this because we've tried to somehow correlate the American dream with God's vision for our life. They do not go together. The kingdom of God is a kingdom of I will do it for you. And you might say, well, Carl, what's my role in this? You telling me I have no personal human responsibility? You do. First and foremost, your responsibility is cling to the one who gives the yoke of freedom. And then you walk according to the spirit of God as he directs you as you read and study his word, as you commune with him early in the morning, as you drive through crazy traffic, as you interact with a crazy uncle over Christmas. I am someone's crazy uncle. Just dawned on me, I am that crazy uncle, holy cow. This is what our Jesus wants to do. And so today, knowing that some of this I'm going to hold back for our Christmas Eve service because we're in the same text and we're going to have something so practical, so powerful, I need you there. I just want to tell you this this morning. Stop shouldering what Christ has conquered. Stop. Stop. Stop shouldering what Christ has conquered. And I want to give you five practical things that are going to give you radical freedom today if you'll own it. Stop shouldering first and foremost control. Oh, this is a big one. In Isaiah 9, verse 6, the government shall be upon his shoulder. What does that mean, Pastor Carl? It means this, that the earthly kingdom is supplanted by the heavenly kingdom. When Jesus came, his kingdom came with him. There's a new operating system in the world today. And practically speaking, we've got to remember heaven that this rule or dominion, Misra, Shechem, means that he will put upon his shoulders the sovereign authority over every earthly thing that is happening in total. And you might say, well, why are so many bad things happening? Because in our rebellion and broken fallenness, God gave mankind a free will. And there is chaos and hell breaking loose. I get it. I host a radio show on Moody Radio. And over the last week and a half, we've been raising money to give goats, goats, In fact, we didn't even plan to do this. Sometimes I just bring on a guest, and we go crazy giving away stuff, people asking them to give stuff. And Samuel Lamond came on air. As a matter of fact, before he came on air, he texted me. He goes, hey, man, have you heard about the GOAT Project? I said, I haven't heard about the GOAT Project. He said, oh, man, when I get on air, I'll tell you about the GOAT Project. I'm like, okay. It's kind of dicey hearing about a GOAT Project live on air. I'm glad I've got a dump button when crazy things are said. So he starts talking about the GO Project. You know what they're doing with Call of Hope? Just a really cool thing. They are giving goats predominantly to girls that are so oppressed by the Boko Haram and other radical Islamic groups that they are giving goats as a way of upward mobility and even the offspring of these goats then they can sell. It's lifting not only that little girl but her family and sometimes entire villages to give one goat into a village. And I gave that vision on air, and we had over 1,000 goats are now being commissioned and sent into northern Nigeria. How cool is that? How cool is that? Is Zimbabwe going to stop? But Jesus hasn't either. And God's redeeming some of the most heartbreaking, awful stuff in this world today. Why? Because we live in a kingdom where the prince and power of the air, Satan and his demonic forces, are at work. I had a young man tell me beforehand, he said, this following Jesus stuff can get dicey, man. It can, can't it, Jerry? It's hard. And I remember surrendering to Jesus so many years ago out of my brokenness, walking into this new journey, and I realized, whoo, it's somewhat harder now in life in certain ways than it was before I was just running with the devil. Old rock song from way back. Some of you know it. So here's the hope that we have. Jesus came to put the government on his shoulders. Look, is the government going to be crazy? Yes. But is he sovereign over all things? Absolutely. And let me just be practical with you here right now. I know. I know. A lot of you get twisted around the axle of your emotions whenever you read the headlines or whatever's going on in world or local government or whatever's happening. And right now it's quiet in here. And here's what I want to tell you. Jesus' followers are freed from the yoke of getting twisted around this stuff. Why in the world you shoulder that anymore? Don't shoulder that. When we shoulder things that are going on in this world, we get hand-wringing. We get ticked off. We get, I don't like that woman. I don't like that dude. I don't... Welcome to a broken and fallen world. And Jesus says, put that yoke down. I came to set you free. I've got the government on my shoulders. This is not for you to lose sleep over. This is not for you to get a root of bitterness over. No matter what issue comes up, I rule, he says. And one day, all of you that want equal weights and balances, it's coming. Not yet, but it's coming. John Calvin said of this one little verse, The prophet shows that the burden of governing rests on Christ alone because he alone is sufficient to bear it. Get it off your shoulders, guys. And I'm not talking politics at a federal or even national or state or village kind of locale. I'm talking about the politics of where you work. Yeah. Amazing how quiet it gets in here. I'm talking about the politics in your homeowner's association. I'm in one. Demons breed in HOAs, I'm convinced of it. HOAs are breeding programs for demonic forces. We got a lot of people in bad HOAs in here right now. It's a funny thing. So that's number one. Number two, stop shouldering confusion. His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor. Now, stop here a moment. I was talking with my friend Michael Rydelnik about this passage. And here's an interesting note that you need to understand about this little passage. This word wonderful is the Hebrew word Pele. And it does not mean, like I love my granddaughter Kate. I took her to the airport early this morning so that they could go do Christmas in New Jersey. It's OK. It's every other year kind of deal around here, OK? So I took her to United. The traffic was crazy. There's so many travelers. Be glad you're not traveling today. And I love Kate. I'm biased toward her. I love her. I don't think there's a cuter kid on the planet right now than my granddaughter, because I'm a grandpa. And when I look at her, do I think wonderful? Yeah, wonderful. This is not what wonderful means in the text. Wonderful counselor is a word, Pele, that was used as a God of signs and wonders. Meaning the Messiah would come and he would heal the lame. He would make the blind to see. He would raise the dead. And his children would continue to witness miracles to this day. And it's happening. Counselor. Wonderful. John Piper says of this verse, when Christ counsels, he does not guess. His wisdom is wonderful because it is God's wisdom. I just want to share with you just a very brief thing that will hopefully help some of you here. I do not mind counselors. With one exception. Any counseling that doesn't leverage the truth of God's word in his wisdom is impotent. This is why biblical counseling is the only counsel because the yoke that God wanted to set you free from is he's gonna tell you stop shouldering confusion in your life. You know what I've found to be true as a pastor now for 40 years? Wow. I have found that people are astonished just in the Sermon on the Mount. When I go sit down with a cup of coffee with someone and they're struggling with something, I can almost assure you 100% there's something in the Sermon on the Mount alone that Jesus offers up that will give you Almost signs and wonders of wisdom and counsel that will help you navigate it. How many of you sit here today with confusion and the Lord says to you, the Holy Spirit wants to guide you into all truth and to remind you of what I have spoken. I can't sit down with each of you individually and take each situation that's confusing to you and take you to the Word, but better than that, you can go to the Word of God and the Holy Spirit will guide you in it. When Christ counsels, Piper says, He does not guess. He's not chucking pasta. It's not like going to a shrink going, well, he says, you know, let's try this for a week. Come back to me in a week. Let's try. No! Jesus cuts through the fog of your confusion and says this. Walk in this. Do I believe that? I absolutely do. Absolutely. Stop shouldering control, stop shouldering confusion. Third, stop shouldering your weakness. Stop. He shall be called Mighty God, El Gabor, meaning warrior or champion. He's a mighty God. R.C. Sproul says about this verse, only one who is truly God has the power to rescue us from what we are utterly unable to overcome. Some of you have thought wrongly that I need to somehow, with all the frailty and feebleness that I have, I just need to suck it up. No. Weakness is celebrated. In 2 Corinthians chapter 12, the apostle Paul tells us what we do with weakness, we celebrate it, we rejoice in it because in our weakness, he is strong. See, life in the kingdom is all upside down and backwards and it's inverted and the whole thing's different. Something just dawned on me right now. I'm going to use it. I want to show you how backwards the kingdom of God is and different from our thinking. You know how big I am on time management and how important that is in all of our lives. And I want to remind you again this morning of what we find in Psalm 90, the only song that Moses ever wrote. And he cried out to God and he said, teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom. But let me give you, this is just totally an insight in scripture that is so cool because a lot of us have thought wrongly that wise people redeem time. It's not what Moses said. He said, people who redeem time become wise. Everything in the kingdom of God is backwards. If you want to be at the front of the line, you go to the back of the line. If you wanna go higher, you gotta go lower. And if you want the light yoke of Jesus, you let him carry with joy the yoke of your weakness. And it's as simple as you saying, I don't have the strength to get through right now. Father, would you help me? And if you listen closely, you will hear the father say, my son came so that you wouldn't have to shoulder your weakness anymore. He knows you can't carry it. Some of you might think, Carl, you're loud. I don't need any groans of ha-ha or anything like that. It's a rhetorical thing here. Are your type A personality, and I guess from an earthly standpoint, I probably am. Do you ever get weak, Carl? I want to be this candid with you. I am so painfully aware of my frailty. And I embrace it like never before in my life. When I get up early in the morning, as I did early this morning, and spend time with the Lord, you know what I go over with Him? I go over with Him all the things I'm unable to do. And you know what I hear God say back to me constantly? Give me that. I can work with that. I want to talk to you husbands or husbands to be in this room for a moment. You do not have enough strength in you to love your wife as Christ loves the church. You do not. You are not hardwired to do that. And when you rise early in the morning, let me tell you what real spiritual men rehearse, and I'm going to be this bold, every day. In fact, without giving away too many details, we had an incredible day going yesterday and then something happened and I could see right away my bride needs me. And you know what I did? I'm like, God, I can't do this. And I'm listening to the Lord. You know what the Lord told me? Straight up truth. Get that vacuum out. No, I'm not kidding. And it wasn't because she told me to or even hinted at me to. It's because the Spirit of God said, you can't do what needs to be done, but I'm going to guide you in your weakness, and I'm going to use you in your bride's life. And man, I was like... And then I'm like, I got, man, I got a six-shooter of cleaners off each hip. And I'm, man, I'm running around that house. And I mean, our granite countertops were looking so supreme. And everything was just dialed in. And the stainless sink, guys, that thing has never glimmered. I should have taken a picture of this thing. It was beautiful. Now, here's what I want to tell you. I am absolutely convinced that it was the Lord that led me to do that because as I'm doing it, I was actually exhausted from housebreaking a puppy who's up peeing at 2.30 in the morning. And I didn't have the juice to love my wife rightly. But I asked the Lord, what do you want me to do? And in my weakness, will you help me do what she needs? And you know what she told me this morning? This would be a secret, but it's going out on air. She said, hey, bub, I want to tell you something. Thanks for loving me so well yesterday. I said, yeah, babe. You know what I did? I walked around the corner and I go... You carried that one, God. Is that how the Lord works? Yeah. Am I a weak man? I have no strength to get up here. I was born afraid to get up in front of people. I nearly failed my speech class in high school because I shook so violently and I was so afraid that I couldn't get a word out of my mouth. So when the Lord told me that I had to preach the gospel through a couple of really wise men, my homiletics prof and my president of my Bible college, you know what my thought was? Oh, other guys were probably going, oh, yeah. You know what I was saying? Oh, no. And you know what? I praise God for that to this day. To this very day. Embrace your weakness and let the conquering child carry it. He's a mighty God. Number four, stop shouldering abandonment. This is amazing. His name shall be called Everlasting Father. The Hebrew words, all these have two. It's the Father, the Source, the Protector. And everlasting is simply ad, without end, eternity. Charles Spurgeon, the Prince of Preachers from Metropolitan Tabernacle in London years ago, said of this verse, Earthly fathers may fail or forsake, but this father never leaves his children nor withdraws his care. In Christ Jesus, we see a love that goes through time and space. And he will never abandon. He will never leave us. He will never forsake us. His name shall be called Everlasting Father. And the beauty of this is some of you had a bum start with your dad. As a matter of fact, let me be this bold, you know how much I bragged on my dad and he went home to be with God at the age of 95, and God in his humor has left behind something for me. And my daughter and I were talking about this, as little baby Kate gets a little bit bigger, she's not baby Kate, she's Grandpa Joe. It's my dad's face. It's my dad's grin. And my dad had this grin, no joking. It was like coast to coast, from here to here. And when he grinned, he just lit up everyone around him. And my dad was an awesome dad. But even though my dad, ranking against all the other dads that I wound up, you know, it's weird. You think maybe you thought I've got a horrible dad. And then you hang out with some friends. He goes, that guy's got a better dad or whatever. I always had this dad that was like top of the heap dad. My buddies came to my home. They're like, let's go work with your dad. I'm like, forget my dad. Let's go run around. They're like, no, we want to hang out with your dad. I'm like, what do you mean we want to hang out with my dad? My dad wears funky pants and stuff like that. Let's go hang out. They love my dad. Listen to me. As good as my dad was, my dad was imperfect, and he blew it a few times. Bad. Everlasting Father. He's good. He loves you. He will never leave you or forsake you. And he is seen through the person of Jesus Christ. He says, you want to see the Father look at my life. You want to see the love of the Father that he has for you no matter what kind of dad you have. Just look at the way Jesus operates in the world today. Fifth, stop shouldering chaos. His name shall be called Prince of Peace. Matthew Henry says about this little passage, he said, he has able Jesus to quiet the minds of his people amid all the confusions of the world. All of them. Man. Do you know? You know, I'm gonna be going to Kenya in January, and then I'm gonna be going to India in May, and I'm gonna be taking a trip to Lebanon sometime for a quick, literally two-day trip. They're going to fly me over there. I'm going to land. I'm going to take a truck to a refugee camp about an hour and a half away. We're going to get our eyes on it. We're going to see what's going on for about three hours. I'm going to drive back. I'm going to get in a plane and fly back stateside. That's how long the trip's going to be. They got to get me in and out quickly. for the purpose of safety, and it's chaos in that refugee camp. But you know what's amazing? In the middle of that chaos, there is a little bakery that is being manned and womaned. Is that the right way to say it? Men and women are working at this thing. And they aren't even adults, they're kids who are blind. And they needed some way for some gainful employment, but this little entrepreneurial thing in the middle of this chaos sprang up this place of peace. And I was talking with the leadership of this effort, and what they're saying is that these kids have learned to go through the entire baking process, including hot ovens. They can't see anything. And they're taking it from flour and water to rising bread to being in an oven to pulling it out to feeding refugees, and it's this place of peace in the midst of chaos. I don't know what kind of chaos is in your soul, but I know this. Jesus wants Christmas in your heart. He wants to break that yoke that you've been carrying and take that on himself. And he wants peace to rule in you. Why? Because he is the Prince of Peace. Can I just rehearse them? And then I'm going to go to a quick turning point here, guys, and we're going to internalize this a little bit so you can jump up here, team. I'm just going to go back through them. As a matter of fact, Carol, if you could go back. Let's go back to number one. There we go. Stop shouldering control. So I wanna ask you, are you a person right now who is struggling with control, and you've got the worries of this world on your shoulders, and it's from the HOA to high-level federal government, I don't know what it is, but you gotta set it down, and you know what will happen to you? You will be a whole lot more pleasant to live around. Stop shouldering control. Two, stop shouldering confusion. Stop shouldering it. His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor. Signs and wonders counselor. This is wonderful, not like baby Kate wonderful. This is wonderful. Counselor. Don't shoulder confusion. Number three, stop shouldering weakness. Give it to God. Sit down and tell Him today, I'm weak. I can't do fill in the blank. Do it! Aren't you exhausted already? The job you need, the issue you've gotta confront, the group you've gotta lead, And could I just say this? Some of you are carrying the weight of your weakness and you don't know it because it's manifesting itself in pride. You think you do know something. You think you can do something. And I'm asking and inviting you to embrace your weakness, whether you've known it or not. Fourth, stop shouldering abandonment. Might have had a dad that was lousy. We got a new dad. And it's seen through the person of Jesus Christ. He is. He is. And stop shouldering chaos. Simple turning point today. What one thing do you need to stop shouldering today? Come on, right? What do you need to stop shouldering today? That's it. Let him have it. If Gideon's little misfit army is indicative of God's ability to do what we can't do, boy, that's a beautiful picture. And just embrace the fact that you aren't all that. You aren't. And it's good. And it's okay. It's okay. Close your eyes. Bow your head. What one thing do you need to stop shouldering today? I'm asking every person in this room who feels anything. Small voice of God telling them to let go of something. Put one palm out in front of you. These are good exercises to do. One palm out. Straight up. Right about waist high. Straight up. Palm up. Not hand in the air. Just palm up in front of you. Right there. There we go. And here's what I want you to do. You're going to place that thing right there in that hand symbolically. I need to quit shouldering this right now. Identify it. What is it? What is it? Just like an 85-pound boy had to look at my dad and go, I don't think I can do this. I want you to right now symbolically hand that to Jesus. Give it to Him. Give it to Him. Father, thank you. You are the God of miracles. You're the God that breaks every yoke. We don't have to shoulder this stuff, God. That's freeing. That's liberty. And I pray in the name of Jesus, it will be Christmas every day in our hearts because of it. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. I want to invite you all to stand as we sing this song one more time. I want to remind us that we do not serve a far-off God. This thing in our hand, we don't have to throw it. God is right here with us in this room. He's right here with us in our hearts. This is where his throne resides. So as we sing this song, saying that he is worthy of it all, cast everything on him. Because he wants to take it. All the saints and angels Bow before your throne And all the elders cast their crowns before the Lamb of God and sing, you are worthy of it all. You are worthy of it all. For from you are all things, and to you are all things. You deserve the glory. We give it to Jesus. All the saints and angels bow before your throne. And all the elders cast their crowns before the Lamb of God and sing, you are worthy of it all. You are worthy of it all For from You are all things And to You are all things You deserve the glory Day and night We stand at your throne worshiping you, God, with our whole lives, with our whole hearts, with everything within us. We give it all to you, God. And day and night, night and day, let incense arise. Day and night, night and day, let incense arise. Night and day, let incense arise. Day and night. Night and day, let incense arise. Day and night. Night and day, let incense arise. Day and night. DAY AND NIGHT, NIGHT AND DAY LET IT SINCE ARISE DAY AND NIGHT, NIGHT AND DAY LET IT SINCE ARISE YOU ARE WORTHY OF IT ALL You are worthy of it all. For from you, for from you are all things. And to you are all things. You deserve the glory. You are worthy, you are worthy of it all. You are worthy of it all. For from you are all peace. And to you are all peace. You deserve the glory. Hallelujah. Give him a hand. We got to... I was able to communicate with a rapidity that is uncharacteristic of me. So we got to sing that chorus one more time. So let's go. And you go upper octave, man, and let it rip. Here we go. Let's lift it up. You are worthy of it all. Sing it like you mean it. Let's go. You are worthy of it all. For from you are all things, and to you are all things. You deserve the glory. For from you are all things, and to you are all things. You deserve the glory. I'm going to cut you loose here in a moment. I got two things I want to say to you. Number one, if you're new here today or been here a while today, I want you to consider joining the family. We are going to be meeting. We got water and some goodies for you. It's going to be a quick meeting. 15, 20 minutes out that door to the right in a little room there. I can't wait to see you there. I'm going to take questions and answers and all that stuff. Love to see you. That'd be great. Second, this is super important. Even if Ajit has to cover your Uber, get to Christmas Eve service. Ajit does not know I am offering his pocketbook. But Ajit is on the hook. Ajit, I'm not helping him at all. He is paying for your Uber. Isn't that great what I can do? Isn't that offer up my brother like that? And... Let me give you a blessing here right now. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than we could ask or even imagine. To the one who was prophesied would break every yoke. May that one cause you to shoulder no longer the things of this world. And may the things of this world grow strangely dim in the light of God's glory and grace. To him be glory in your life, today and forevermore. Amen. And Merry Christmas, everybody.