Celebration Sunday 2026
Psalm 25:4-5; John 16:12-15
SERMON TRANSCRIPT
And so God continues to move. He continues to show up. And I want to keep, I got five more minutes with us, okay? I want to close out this morning with, and sharing with you this. We talked about the faithfulness of God at every single step of the way that we've seen throughout this year. And it was probably a couple months ago, I was in my devotions, and I came across this word that struck me.
And this was the word, the word was wonderment. Wonderment. And the devotional is talking about the wonderment of God. And here's the definition of wonderment. I'm going to put this up on the screen. Wonderment is defined as a feeling of surprise, awe, deep pleasure when you see something new, beautiful, or hard to believe. I feel like this has been God moving in our midst. I shared this morning with our team. We have a pre-huddle and prayer before church starts. And I was sharing how I feel like sometimes God moves in the shadows. And because he's in the shadows, we don't see him. And sometimes we think, God, are you even there?
To look at some of the finances we had this last year, and we're praying over as a team, as a leadership board going, God, what are you doing? We don't understand. But he kept reminding me, I got this. And then to know where finances were with Andre and the things there and God going, I got this. And for us to see where we are and where we hope to be as a church, where we with our ministries and the size and our congregation to go like, God, we're not there. And God goes, no, I got this. I got this.
And I was reminded in Psalm 25, four through five, we just finished a series of Psalms. But the psalmist here says, show me your ways, Lord. Teach me your paths. Guide me in your truth and teach me. For you are God, my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long. This has been my prayer for our church this last year. Of God, show me your ways. And sometimes we get to see God move right before our eyes, and it's amazing. It's incredible. But sometimes he moves where we don't see him, and we think, God, are you really moving? And the psalmist here is saying, show me your ways. I can't see you're moving. I don't see how you're going to do it. I don't see how you're going to pull us through. But you have before, and I remember that, and I'm holding on to that, and I'm trusting that because you are my God. You are my Savior.
Jesus, his words directly to the disciples when he was getting ready to leave, to go back to heaven, and the Holy Spirit was coming. And he's like, I'm going to give you something. It's going to be amazing. Jesus says this. He goes, “I have much more to say to you. But right now, it would be more than you could understand. We could probably just stop right there and pray and have lunch, right? The Spirit, the Holy Spirit shows what is true and will come and guide you into the full truth. The Spirit doesn't speak on his own. He will tell you only what he has heard from me and he will let you know what is going to happen. The Spirit will bring glory to me.”
To see our community saturated with the glory of God. By making my message and telling it to you, everything the Father has is mine. This is why I've said that the Spirit takes my message and tells it to you. There is a level of Holy Spirit faith guidance for us this next year. And it is an opportunity for us to grow deeper into Jesus. It's an opportunity for us to grow together deeper into Jesus. And it's an opportunity to show our community what Jesus is all about. See, God has been working quietly and preparing and opening doors even before we knew that we needed a door to open. Even before we knew Andre was needing this, God said, I got this.
Even before we knew, man, we're going to try to launch VBS for the first time in eight years. We're going to need a lot of help. God's like, I got the volunteers. Even before we knew what we were going to step into this next year, God said, I have it figured out. And he begins to reveal himself to us of what he had already been doing. I could spend hours up here telling and sharing more stories of what you guys have seen God move in your lives this year. And we could celebrate together what he has done. And when he begins to move, the dots start to connect. Remember connect the dot as a kid? A little drawing. All you saw on the paper was a bunch of dots, right? But when you started putting it together, even halfway through, you didn't know what it was going to look like. But then you finish that last dot and connect it together. You pull back and you see, man, what an amazing picture of what God has done. And in that, it means that there's going to be seasons and times when we don't see the full picture. But that's okay. It just needs to be part of our faith moment to continue to trust him. And so I'm excited for what God is going to do because he is going to lead us. He is going to guide us. And so my challenge for you guys in this next year, keep looking for his fingerprints. Keep asking him to show us his way and keep walking forward together as a church. Because in the end, our hope is in him. Our entire hope is in God Almighty, creator of the universe, the orchestrator of everything, and the sovereign Lord Almighty. Amen?
Amen. Well, let's pray. Jesus, thank you for this morning. God, we celebrate what you have done. God, we look forward into 2026 and 27. God, what you are going to do in and through this church on the corner of Sunset and Fairway. God, you have been faithful since 1999 when this church launched to continue to guide us forward. And as Bob shared, there's been moments when we've looked at each other and said, is this it? And we thought it was done, but you said, no. I got something working. I'm moving. Have the faith. And so, God, we continue to have the faith in you. We continue to trust you. We continue to seek after you every day on our own. God, we know that that's going to involve us participating. That's going to involve us giving financially. That's going to involve us serving more. That's going to involve us being around our friends and our family in this church more than we do right now, God. And we step up to the plate. You have it. This is your church. And we know there is a role and a calling for each and every one of us to play in with that greater kingdom movement. And so, God, we trust you today. We praise you. We love you. We thank you. And we pray for our wonderful lunch this afternoon. Everybody said amen.