Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Pastor Doug spends some time at the beginning of the gospel to talk about the parents of Jesus and their amazing strength and devotion.
Just like Matthew 5:13 says, Christians are the salt of the earth so join us as we find our saltiness on our journey through life together. Listen as Dr. Douglas Peake dives deep into the topics of his sermons each week, breaking down content, discussing evidence, telling stories and speaking into current events using biblical truths and principals.
Secularism has tried to
take Jesus out of Christmas.
You know, like the Senegalese,
oh, we want the commercial stuff.
Cause you know, people make money.
Oh, we want the gift giving and
the decorations and the fun,
but we don't want no Jesus.
Well, the problem is, is secularism
is the idea that you can take all the
good stuff that came from something.
And then like religion, in this
particular place, or faith, divorced
them or separate them and then
maintain the wonder of the good stuff.
Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to
the Salty Pastor Podcast, a podcast
dedicated to helping you find the
greater strength within yourself.
When you discover who you are,
it's your discovery, your epiphany,
your journey that you must go
through, but you can't do it alone.
We can only discover who we truly are.
When we meet Jesus, this is the
purpose of the Salty Pastor,
a podcast designed to help you
discover who you truly are in Jesus.
And we are here to help you discover
what God's doing in you along the way.
My name is Jesse Maher.
I'll be your host and let's welcome
the Salty Pastor himself, Dr.
Douglas
Peake.
Well, welcome everybody
to the podcast today.
And it's a very exciting time of the year.
It's one of my favorite times of the year.
I love December, because of everything
that it's about family and friends,
and most importantly, what our Lord
and savior Christ did, coming into
this world in order to save us.
And our goal here at the Salty
Pastor, to help you know him better
to know what you believe about
him, why you believe it, because I
really agree with your statement.
And that is, is that we
cannot find strength.
We cannot find our courage.
We cannot find meaning we
cannot find peace, all the
things that our soul longs for.
Cannot be found until we meet Jesus.
So I'm pretty excited about that.
And I'm pretty excited about
this time of the year when we
get to talk about Jesus a whole
lot.
Well, I know our new series
is titled Jesus Is Christmas.
Um, which is great because I
mean, I think Christmas is.
One of the most widely
celebrated holidays in the world.
People who don't believe in, in God
loves the Christmas spirit, but it's
kind of been like you surfed, right?
Like Christmas doesn't have anything
to do with Jesus for a lot of people.
It's just this holiday that has a
lot of toy buying involved in scratch
this year supply chain issues.
So, um, it is, uh, celebrated
all across the globe.
And in, in one case what's
really interesting is Senegal,
which is a Muslim country.
They can't get enough for Christmas.
They love celebrating, uh, Christmas.
Now they want to keep it
secular and commercial.
But, uh, it's really kind of
interesting in that regard.
So yes, it's very true
about people love Christmas.
And I think the thing about the thing
we need to talk about more than anything
else about the Christmas spirit is to
show how Jesus is the source of everything
that people love about Christmas.
So if you take away Jesus, everything
you love about the holiday is gone.
And in fact, the holiday
itself would cease to exist.
So even though the Senegalese, I
believe I pronounced that properly.
The Senegalese is a Muslim country
that wants to celebrate Christmas
and make it secular and commercial.
In the end, if you take away
Christ, there will be no Christmas.
And so I think that's really
important to understand is that
you cannot separate the two.
Absolutely our society, I think not just
the Senegalese, but you know, society as
a whole Western civilization
really taken the Christmas
holiday for granted.
I mean, it's, it's taken all the
feel-good things, food decorations,
the music, being generous, and it's
kind of separated them from their
origination, right.
Like where they came from.
We can't forget that we do all this stuff.
Like, um, you know, we have so many
traditions and things and all this
stuff, that's all wrapped up in
Christmas, but a lot of people don't
even know why we do most of them.
Right.
They're like, they're, there
are surface level interaction.
Yeah.
Why do you put lights on your house?
Why do you get Christmas trees?
Why do we give gifts?
Right?
Do we celebrate Saint Nicholas?
Why do we, uh, eat?
Why do we, uh, take the time
to get our family together?
Why, what was all this music originate
from and why it is it always talk
about all of these feel good things.
And I mean, all their traditions.
All of the ceremonies, all of the
decorations, all of the habits
and traditions that we have, where
do all these things come from?
That's the question we need to answer.
Absolutely, having an idea of
what it all means and everything
that we enjoy has an origin.
So let's take some time and
talk about we're here for.
Well, we're going to begin our
series by going to the announcements
about the birth of Jesus.
And I think in the announcements
themselves before Jesus was even born.
Uh, we need to understand a
few things that the Bible teach
because the season is Jesus.
It's about him.
It's about who he is, why he came, and
what he accomplished when he did come.
So let's talk about how his birth actually
came about how he entered into this world.
So I'll read from Luke chapter
one, beginning with verse 26,
and it says in the six month of
Elisabeth's pregnancy now, Elizabeth.
Was Mary's older cousin.
So she using probably your
mid thirties at this time.
People believe Mary was maybe 15,
16 years of age, you know, maybe 17,
but more likely about 16 years old.
So she wasn't very old.
And she had an older
cousin named Elizabeth.
Who'd been married for quite some time.
And Elizabeth became pregnant.
Okay.
And she became pregnant
with John the Baptist.
So there is a relationship between
Jesus and John the Baptist.
And John the Baptist was about
six, seven months older than Jesus.
And so Jesus then, uh, or John,
the Baptist then grows up in
the wilderness then comes and
announces the coming Messiah.
And he practiced what was known
as the baptism of repentance.
And so he asked the Jews
to return back to God.
So.
What happened is in the sixth
month of Elizabeth's pregnancy.
John sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth.
So God sent the angel to a town
in Galilee to a Virgin pledged to
be married to a man named Joseph.
He was a descendant of David.
So he is of the seed of David, which
is really important for all you Old
Testament, covenant buffs, because there's
a prophecy in the Old Testament that the
Messiah would come from David's seed.
So 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.
And Mary was greatly troubled
at his words and wonder 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 were to call him Jesus.
He will be great and will be
called the son of the most high.
So the Lord, God will give him
the throne of his father, David.
And he will reign over
Jacob's descendants forever.
His kingdom will never end.
And how can this be?
Mary asked the angel since I am a Virgin.
And the Angel answered the
Holy Spirit will come upon you.
And the power of the most
high will overshadow you.
So the holy one to be born
will be called the son of God.
Even Elizabeth, your relative is
going to have a child in her old age.
And she, who was said to be unable
to conceive is under six months.
For no word from God will ever fail.
So here's really interesting
is the Angel says.
She says I'm a Virgin.
And so in her worldview of where she's at.
Being pregnant outside of
wedlock is not an option.
There's zero social network.
There's zero family support.
There's zero.
There's zero anything.
So, if you were born, uh, if you were
found to be pregnant outside of wedlock,
and then you're displaced, right.
And no one will marry you and you
can't go to your father's house,
and there's no reference to her
father's house as a possibility.
Then you basically are condemned to
a life of extreme poverty begging in
the streets that your life expectancy
is cut in half and so forth.
So it's really interesting
because she says, how can this.
I am a Virgin.
And so there's a lot of
implications to this question.
Is she asking whether or not
a , it's going to happen through
Joseph after she gets married.
Is that what she's asking?
She doesn't know.
And so the answer, and this is why
verse 35, um, is so important because
the angel basically says, well, as a
Virgin, you're going to get pregnant.
And in her mind, it's like, okay, this
is going to completely displace me.
I mean, who's going to
believe that, right?
Nobody's going to believe that
it had never happened ever.
And it hasn't happened since.
So who's going to believe that.
And so she sees immediately the
implications, I think, and her response
in verse 38 is I am the Lord's servant.
My Mary answered may your
word to me be fulfilled.
And then the angel left her.
So I find this really interesting
because you've, you've kind of laid out.
She's kind of in a dire
circumstances, she chooses to
believe that this is going to happen.
Correct.
Um, in her culture, she's basically
like, well, if this happens and I am
to become pregnant, then I'm done.
I'm done.
But she takes kind of a view that I
think most people would really struggle
with, which is I am your servant.
Right?
Like that's an attitude we don't, I mean,
I don't even know that I would have.
Do with me as you will.
Yeah.
And so talk to me, talk
to me about that attitude.
Do we, does she, is she known to be
like a very, I guess like, Does she
just have an internal peace about it?
What are, where are we thinking she is at?
Where she just trusts this fact?
Obviously it would have been
overwhelmingly obvious to her
that this is going to place her
in a very vulnerable position.
It's going to, it could, you
know, it will ruin her life.
And yet her there's no
question about that.
And, uh, she'd be humiliated.
She would be, uh, You know, excised
or, you know, ex-communicated from her
community and your family and she's in
she's betrothed to be married, which
basically means she she's married.
Right.
Uh, so she's ready to, she's been
given away and the dowery has been
paid and all of this kind of stuff.
And yet, uh, she simply said,
I am the Lord's servant.
And this is what I think
makes her so special.
Is that, uh, not that she was so
young and not that she was a female.
But that she had an attitude
very few people have.
Even people who believe strongly in Jesus.
Uh, she actually possessed the attitude
of complete submission to the will of God.
Uh, it kinda, it kind of reminds
me of, uh, father Damien.
He was a Catholic priest.
He was a Belgian priest and he
went, he felt called and there was a
government forced, a colony of lepers.
They were quarantined.
Call on the island of Molokai in Hawaii.
And this is when it was
the kingdom of Hawaii.
It wasn't quite a, it wasn't a state yet.
Okay.
And so, he went there to minister,
to the people of Molokai this colony.
And so he went there and he built
hospitals and roads and houses, you
know, they were living in squalor
and they'd given up on life and he
shows up and he starts educating them.
And so forth.
And what's really interesting is
that leprosy is a bacterial infection
that just gets inside of you.
And it just stays for
a very, very long time.
And it's incurable.
It is technology.
Yeah.
Yeah.
They have a, it's a cocktail of
antibiotics that they give you.
You have to be on them for awhile,
but they can cure it in a sense now.
But what it does is it attacks the,
you know, this, uh, bacteria attacks,
your nerve endings and so forth.
And what happens is you stop,
it can create skin lesion.
But it also kills the
nerves and so endings.
And so the biggest problem in leprosy
is if you get cut, you know, on your
extremity and you don't know it.
Okay.
And so you can get infected and you think
prior to modern medicine, which is only
been around for about a hundred years.
And so, antibiotics before that, you know,
if you get infected or you get sepsis or
gangrene, you get all this kind of stuff.
It's not a good thing.
Right.
But he went and what he did is his father,
Damon went to this, he felt called, he
went there, he built an entire community.
And what's interesting about, uh,
the bacteria and bacterial infection,
is that it's not passed through
sexual contact and it's not passed
onto the children through birth.
Okay.
It's usually passed on by being
directly exposed to the mucus
of somebody who's infected.
So if they sneeze on you or their snot
or whatever, their mucus from their
sinuses is generally how you get it.
So he was there for a
very, very long time.
He lived among them for probably, I don't
know, seven, eight years, nine years.
And then he got it and then
eventually it killed him, you know?
And so.
It's really interesting because here's
a guy who just said, Hey, I'm going
to go and I'm going to minister these
people and you know, um, I'm going
to die from it and I'm going anyway.
And I think what's really interesting
is that we don't see this level of
conviction about anything in our
world today, anymore, you know?
Um, and so, that shocks people.
And I think that this is, this is
something that's so inspiring about Mary.
Is that here's a young lady who's showing
me that I can rise to the occasion.
I can step up and do things that I never
imagined that I would be able to do.
You know, sometimes things are put in
our path and we get news it's really bad.
Or there's things that.
Our minds run forward.
It's like, you know, well, if the
Lord's prompting me to do this and I
do this, the ramifications of it could
just be wow, really detrimental to me.
And so we try to talk our way out of
it, you know, whatever it might be.
And so not Mary, she just said, you
know, do unto me for, I am your servant.
And so I think that is really.
You know, Mary is so inspirational
because she gets this news and
she doesn't even question it.
And then she just says, let it happen.
You know, she has no idea.
This what's really
interesting about the text.
She has no idea what her parents
are going to say, or, and most
importantly, she has no idea what's
going on in Joseph's life at all.
Well, let's talk about Joseph, cause
again, like she's made peace with this,
but it's like trying to explain that
to your husband and be that it's like,
well, I didn't really know really.
It was an angel who told me this was
going to happen and I'm really a Virgin.
I promise in that point in time,
obviously there's a lot of.
I mean, he, I mean, there's, there's
a lot probably going through his head.
There is a lot probably
going through his head.
What does the text tell us about Joseph?
Matthew chapter one.
Yeah.
Matthew chapter one.
It talks about what happened to Joseph.
And what's really interesting is
in Matthew's account and in Luke's
account, it doesn't say in Luke's
account when he talks about.
That Joseph had any idea
what the angel had told Mary.
Right.
So Luke doesn't make any
reference to that at all.
Then we jump over to Matthew in Matthew
doesn't have any accounting of Joseph's
knowledge of what the angel told Mary.
So it's interesting.
It doesn't talk about that.
So the angels came separately
to each one of them.
And then in what it says in Matthew
chapter one, verse 18, it says,
this is how the birth of Jesus.
The Messiah came about.
His mother, Mary was pledged to
be married to Joseph, but before
they came together, she was found
to be pregnant through the Holy
Spirit.
Because Joseph, her husband was faithful
to the law and yet he did not want to
expose her to the public disgrace he
had in mind to divorce her quietly.
So he doesn't have it.
He's going to divorce her, but
he's going to do it in a nice way.
Right.
Going it's like, yeah.
Okay.
But after he had considered this, an angel
of the Lord appeared 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 were to give him the name
Jesus, because he will save his people
from their sins.
And this took place to fulfill what
the Lord had said to the prophet.
The Virgin will conceive and give
birth to a son and they will call him
Emmanuel, which means God with us.
So when Joseph woke up, he did what
the angel of the Lord had commanded
him and took Mary home as his wife.
But he did not consummate their
marriage until she gave birth to
a son and he gave him the name.
Jesus.
So we.
We see this weird kind of terminology
that Matthew uses any, any says the
angel, he took it as a command, right?
Like what angel said to him.
Don't be afraid.
But he took it as a command.
Right.
You know, which is really
interesting because I think there's
some basic applications to that.
You know, first and foremost, what it
tells us about Joseph is that his faith
and his belief was extremely strong.
Right.
It's very powerful.
Um, I remember a debate between a
really respected theologian and an
atheist, who wasn't prepared, for the
debate, um, which most atheists don't.
Uh, because they are just so smart that
they do, they think they're super smart.
Uh, they have a false hood of, uh,
intelligence, and then what they do is
they talk in an echo chamber, right.
They talk about the only two people
who agree with them and, and, uh,
and they talk to sick offense.
People who just think anything
they say is good, no matter what.
So the arguments get really, really lame.
So I remember a debate between a
respected theologian and an unprepared
atheist, and the atheist was trying
to argue that signs, wonders,
all of these things, are simply
natural occurring phenomenon
that people misinterpret.
So the theologian asked him, okay,
what signs or phenomena would have to
occur in order for you to believe, or
to be convinced that there was a God.
And so the atheist not thinking about
the implications of what he was about
to say, I said, well, if there was,
you know, lightening in the sky and
I had visions, uh, things I'd never
see before then I would believe.
And so then the theologian responded
well, based on your own criteria, you
would just excuse those as natural
phenomenon that are being misinterpreted.
See in, in the, the, the atheist
obviously lost that, uh, debate in,
in an incredible way, because the
theologian pointed out an extremely clear
way that it's your choice of belief.
Your frame of reference IE: or
faith, is what determines how
you interpret those events.
There's no abstract scientific way.
It causes you to interpret these
events as purely meaningless natural
phenomena that people misinterpret.
And so he's saying what you're doing is
you're is exactly what you're accusing
other people doing is as a falsehood.
So the theologian points this out.
And so.
Uh, it was his way of saying that
scientists are actually participating
in a faith based system of inquiry.
You really are.
And this is what is so
pernicious in the world today.
And this is why I did the
series on faith and science.
Is that without faith, there
was no would be no science.
You see, and science in and of itself.
Is a personification of a
faith based inquiry, right?
You start with a hypothesis and to
come up with a hypothesis, requires
creativity, challenging the things.
And that requires faith, right?
Faith on what?
Before has been established, faith that
it could logically be rationalized,
or reasoned out to this conclusion.
So let's try that and see what happens.
So, uh, Joseph's faith was super strong.
His frame of reference was clear.
Therefore, when the angel said,
don't be afraid to take Mary as your
wife, he just took it as a command.
So what that tells me is that his
faith was really, really strong.
I mean, there's no question is mine.
Uh, this is an angel telling me this.
Okay.
It's command.
No worries.
I'm going to do on it.
I'm on it.
The second thing it did is it
speaks to the strength of his will.
He not only knew what he was
going to do, but he went out,
followed through and did it.
Even though the point, uh, even to the
point where he didn't consummate his
marriage until after Jesus was born.
So he goes, he marries her.
And he can't even, he can't, he doesn't
even consummate the marriage right.
Until after Jesus was born.
To me, that just really speaks of
a strength of will, that he had.
Um, I see Joseph because of
this as a very strong man.
You know, and I think early on, this
was probably very indelible upon Jesus.
Because you look at Jesus
and you look at his life.
He was a very strong person.
Right, right.
He's super strong, super
courageous, super focused.
And so I think, uh, you know, early
on this strength of will, the strength
of character was something that
Joseph was able to model for him.
Third.
I think that, uh, Matthew doesn't
say anything about, the angel
giving him the details of the plan.
Right.
All he says is don't
be afraid to marry her.
He doesn't even say, the angel
doesn't say, wait until she gives
birth to consummate the marriage.
He comes up with that on his own.
Well, I don't know about you, but when
God tells me to do something particularly
something that's like way out of the norm.
I want all the details.
Right.
What is the plan here?
What's the plan?
Where does this end?
Uh, how does it work out?
Uh, God, how are you going to deal with
this implication and five years from now?
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
How am I going to deal with that?
How am I going to do with that?
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
I went to all the details,
but Joseph didn't ask didn't
get any and he did it anyway.
And so I think that that's what
we're under the powerful things
that so inspirational about
Joseph is that he heard this, he
took it as a command and then he
followed through, without question.
Not even knowing.
And as we know from the New
Testament is that he and Mary went
on to have a number of other sons.
And what's really fascinating.
And I, I wish it wasn't this way, but
I know why it's this way is I wish they
would have talked about Joseph more.
It's like, well, what happened to Joseph?
Why, why is it why isn't Joseph around
when Jesus was doing his ministry?
You know, he was, he had passed away.
We don't know how, we don't know
when, we don't know what for.
All we really know is this,
is that he took Jesus to Egypt
to flee the Herodians massacre and
then he comes back to Nazareth.
Right.
And then the last thing we hear about
Joseph is when Jesus is 12 years old
and they go to Jerusalem to the temple.
Right.
And then they leave and
they can't find him.
And he's like, well, where are you?
I'm in my father's house.
So, um, that's really the last time
we ever see or hear any reference
to Joseph, we just don't know.
And I wish, I wish there was more in it.
Cause I'm, you know, Um, I'm
annoyingly curious about those things.
But I think what's so interesting
about Joseph though is just this
little interaction with Gabriel
tells us so much about him.
His, his frame of reference, you
know, was not, uh, was not one that
was confused or lost or wishy-washy
he knew exactly what he believed.
He knew why he believed it
and he was faithful to it.
Well, I think we see so much of that
in, like you said, this modeling
of like, I don't ask questions.
I just do what God tells me to do.
We see so much of that from his parents
that in Mary and Joseph, that it's no
wonder that Jesus and I mean, obviously
he's part got too, so it's like,
there's a mixture of nature, nurture,
literal Godly nature, versus nurture of
parents.
Mary and Joseph.
Right, and he probably picked
the correct parents, right?
And he
did it for a reason.
He selected the correct parents.
So, yeah, and I think that what all this
tells us is that from the very beginning,
this is what Christmas was all about.
And if before Jesus was even
born, God selected Mary and Joseph
and Mary, uh, a woman of great
faith and great, uh, obedience.
And obedience, not from the standpoint
of, well, I'm just going to do
whatever I'm told, just from a sense of
such peace and such a devotion
that there wasn't any question.
I mean, she just walked in the
fullness of being God's servant, you
know, she, I just want to be God's
servant, you know, I just want that.
And so, and then you have Joseph, right?
A man of character, a man of
strength, a man of conviction.
And even though he didn't have
all the details.
He takes what the Lord said to him
through the angel is a command and
then he just goes out and does it.
Well.
And they, they fight with that initial
fear, both of them obviously, but then
they come to accept it and find joy in it.
Right?
Yeah.
Absolute joy.
And I, and I think that's what the,
you know, the, this is just the prelude
to what, why Jesus is Christmas.
And what I mean by that is you take every
feeling, every emotion, every experience.
Regardless of whether a
person believes in God or not.
About the season of Christmas,
and then realize that all of that
happens, all of that occurs because
something happened 2000 years ago.
And that's something is that
God emptied himself and took
the form of a bond servant.
He was, he humbled himself, by
being born as a vulnerable baby to
a young girl by the name of Mary.
To a stepfather by the name of Joseph.
And that's where Christmas begins.
Without Jesus without this,
there is no Christmas.
And I think that's really important
because secularism has tried
to take Jesus out of Christmas.
You know, like the Senegalese,
oh, we want the commercial stuff
because you know, people make money.
Oh, we want the gift giving and
the decorations and the fun,
but we don't want no Jesus.
Well, the problem is, is secularism
is the idea that you can take all the
good stuff that came from something.
And then like religion in this particular
place or faith, divorced them or separate
them, and then maintain the wonder of
the good stuff, right?
So they make this judgment.
Well, we don't want the Jesus.
We don't want the religion or the faith,
but we want all of the celebration.
We want all of the money and the
consumerism, we went, all of the lights.
We want all of that kind of stuff.
And what people don't realize, is that
this is an absolute, complete failure.
Because I know p, I know lots of people,
and that is, is, uh, myself
included in that is that my father
died on Christmas day in 1987 is
when he died of a heart attack.
So I know a lot of people who've
lost people on Christmas day.
Right.
And so what do you think
the lights mean to them?
What do you think?
The food and the traditions and
all of those things mean to them?
Well, if there's no Jesus, right.
There's no healing.
There's no wholeness.
There's no redemption.
There's no generosity.
It's just empty symbols that mean nothing.
Right.
When you take Jesus away from it.
See, so Christmas has maintained
for me one of the most joyous
times and I've grown up.
Uh, one of the greatest,
uh, disappointments is that
my children never met their
biological grandfather on my side.
They know their grandfather on the other
side has done a great job with them,
but I, uh, they never met my dad, right?
And part of that is, is that
maybe they would understand why
their dad is so weird, you know.
As my mom says, I get it honestly.
Um, but, uh, but really the
essence is, is that you cannot,
secularism is a failed idea.
It's absolutely devoid of any rationality.
Uh, you can't divorce the core
principles or, uh, the upstream event.
And then divorce it from
the downstream effects.
You know, it's really interesting.
There's an atheist out there pendula
of the magical duo, a Penn and Teller,
and he was written a number of books,
three or four books about atheism.
He's really vocal about it so forth.
And he likes to make the argument
that since he is a moral atheists,
all atheist can be, moral.
But this is completely and utterly false.
If there is no God, then there
are no objective morals or duties.
And it's a perfect example of
someone who appears intelligent,
who makes irrational arguments.
Eh, that's a nice way of saying
it's like someone who claims to be
wise, but they're really stupid.
Because they argue in circles and
they invalidate their own, argument.
Because the, you know, the way you defeat
his argument is saying is that will, on
what basis do you build your morality?
Why build it on myself?
So then the atheist next to you builds his
own morality and his own morality says,
I want to kill you and take your stuff.
And it's perfectly fine.
Just because you have that morality
as an atheist doesn't mean anybody
else moralities in- validated.
So no matter what, it's
just a failed system.
So secularism at its core
is a failed ideology.
And we see that we'll talk more
about it on Thursday is we're
seeing the applications of it
across the board in American today.
You see, because you can't
divorce Jesus from Christmas.
And maintain all of the good
stuff that Christmas does.
You can't do that.
There's just, no way.
Absolutely.
Well, um, as we wrap up today,
I do want to encourage you guys.
If you are wanting to spend this
Christmas season focused on Jesus
and why, chris, Jesus Is Christmas.
Um, our Foothill staff has created
a really cool advent devotional
series for you, where you're leading
reading one chapter of Luke day.
And then you get a video sent to your
phone with a two-minute devotional
from one of our staff each day.
Um, you don't have to
give your email address.
You don't have to have
logins, nothing like that.
It just gets sent to your phone
and you get to just spend some time
really focusing on the life of Jesus.
Growing closer to him as we get closer
to the celebration of his birth.
So if you're interested in that, we
really encourage you to, um, join
in on that, um, advent devotional.
And you can do that by texting FH Advent.
So FH space, advent to 72,000,
and you'll get signed up.
They'll send you a little text message.
You just click on the link and you
get signed up and it's going to be
really great and it's going to be
super fun and it will be great for
our audiences on the salty pastor
and the community at Foothills.
Be bonding together over the life of
Jesus as we get closer to Christmas.
So we thank you guys so
much for joining us today.
I encourage you guys to be doing
some sort of advent study, because
I think it's really important
for you to stay focused on Jesus.
When the world's trying to tell you
that, um, your favorite thing is
not going to be available and all
they want to focus on is the gifts.
And we're focused on the
thing that actually matters.
So we encourage you guys to do
some sort of advent study, whether
it's ours or somebody else's.
And enjoy the season
for what it really is.
Thank you so much for joining us.
And we'll see you on Thursday
here on the Salty Pastor Podcast.
Goodbye and blessings.