The Promise of Rest

Welcome to Tribe's podcast. Hey, we just wanna say thank you for making this message a part of your week. Our prayer is that these messages will inspire you to make the name of Jesus famous in your life and to the uttermost bounds of the earth. If you're ever in Jackson Hole, we'd love for you to visit our Tribe fam in person. To learn more about us, you can find us online or at Facebook by searching tribejh.com.

Welcome to Tribe's podcast. Hey, we just wanna say thank you for making this message a part of your week. Our prayer is that these messages will inspire you to make the name of Jesus famous in your life and to the uttermost bounds of the earth. If you're ever in Jackson Hole, we'd love for you to visit our tribe fam in person. To learn more about us, you can find us online or at Facebook by searching tribejh.com.

I I am not Brian, by the way. And Brian has asked me to take over for him this morning. No, I'm here to talk about something else. Specifically, I want to talk about the history of this place, this tribe ministry center, and how we got here. And then more importantly, I'm going to talk about where we're going from here, because as you may have noticed, we've outgrown this space.

And maybe, I actually like that. I like, you know, trying to squeeze 70 people into 50 seats. It makes me feel good. And I think a lot of people feel that way about it. I would rather be here than in a 200 seat auditorium.

It just feels different. Uh-huh. And the Holy Spirit is less diluted. Maybe that's the wrong word. Anyhow, I've got a lot to talk about, so I'm not going to use Brian's conversational technique.

I'm just when I get done, you will have more questions than before I started. So if you want to talk about stuff afterwards, I'll be around afterwards and we can talk. But let me go through this sort of in sequence so I don't get confused. History here is important because it shapes our future. Going back to the beginning, Tribe was incorporated as a Wyoming not for profit corporation, that's an understatement, back in 2016.

Because it's a non profit corporation, its business and affairs are managed at the upper level by a board of trustees. We currently have five trustees, Ryan, Lisa, Joy, Chris,

hippie around 11, and me.

From 2016 until COVID hit, we were 100% a nomad church. We started off with basically evening, late afternoon services at the Shepherd of the Mountains Lutheran Church. They were generous enough to let us use their facility for a very modest price, and that was great, except we outgrew the space. And there was very little kid men space in their facility because they don't have very many little kids running around. So, we started looking for other places.

We wound up at Snow King in the ballroom for a while. Great physical facility for both worship service and kid men. However, it was very expensive and the management was a nightmare. And most of the nightmare fell upon our worship leader, who was also our business manager, who was also the put out the fires person, and clean up the mess, you name it, it was

a

mess. And then they got sold. The snow came, resort was sold. And things got even worse, and it became clear that they did not value us as a Sunday tenant. They had other things on their mind, bigger and better plans.

And we were definitely not their favorite tenant. In any event, this was all sort of coming to a head, and we had been well, actually since we started, we'd been looking for a permanent home, which meant we needed to buy something, which is a virtual impossibility in this valley, particularly since we didn't have any money. But, you know, there were just small problems like that. But we kept trying. Lissa was the ringleader, and probably 10 or 15 times a year she'd drag us all someplace to look at something, which A, was inappropriate, B, was too expensive, and C, didn't want to talk to us in the first place.

We ran the gamut. Let me take you back to the about December 2019, right before COVID. We were homeless. We had about $19,000 in a piggy bank, as Brian would say, and nothing else. We had no other assets.

We weren't quite sure where we were going. And then COVID hit. And all of a sudden, we weren't worried about meeting someplace, we were worried about existing, we immediately pivoted into what I would describe as small group with a central broadcasting spot. And it was at that point that Brian and Lissa's living room, which up until that point had always been our central meeting place. It wasn't Tribe's refrigerator, it was Brian and Lisa's refrigerator, etcetera, etcetera.

Not just Brian and Lisa, but also Kai and Sailor. I got to share on the whole thing. And we thought we needed a place that we could meet that was not Brian and Alyssa's living room, and was not the upstairs room at the whole grocery then, not Whole Foods, which is a great place to meet, but it wasn't always available when we needed it. Anyhow, COVID hits and everything comes apart. We we wind up dispersed.

And not quite sure where we were going. And we had been praying relentlessly for years. And god had been quiet. I would say unresponsive would be too strong a word but there was no there was no hint of where we were going to land. So, one day, in the spring of twenty twenty, we were looking at a space and we're all all going home just sort of distressed, I guess, be the best word.

And Brian got on the phone, and he called a guy who had been a visitor in the summer of twenty nineteen and like a lot of people that we have for summer visitors, when they leave, they say something like, gosh, love your church. Wish we lived here. See you next summer. If we can help you, call us. So, Brian called Mark who had been a summer visitor and just sort of I don't think he even he he just talked about how frustrated we were, what we were trying to do, and how difficult it it was it was.

I don't think he said his thing about money. I was not on the phone call. Came up with a five letter, a five word response. I'm gonna quote it. I think this is accurate.

I'll send you a check. And we're like, woah. And I will spare you the bloody details between, I'll send you the check and buying this place. But on December, not December, 08/20/2020, in the middle of COVID, we bought this place. Now, this is a live work condo.

That's what it says in the official records. Fortunately, the city or the town has never figured out how to enforce the live work rules. The idea is you're supposed to live up here and run your business downstairs, which is ideal for people like therapists, architects, you know, that kind of, yeah, it's a great setup, There's no way to enforce it. As I said to one of our colleagues, are they going to run bed checks on us, see if anybody's actually living in here? I don't think so.

And they have basically they've given up on attempting to enforce it and have stopped permitting this kind of development because they don't know how to enforce it. So here we are with Mark's generosity. Mark not only put up most of the down payment, he also guaranteed the loan for the rest of the price. So, we recovered from COVID much stronger than we went into it. By the time COVID started to clear away, we had augmented our piggy bank.

We own this place. We had become known in the community. We weren't the new kid on the block anymore. We had some respect in the community. Not a bunch of wackos.

Well, some of us are wackos, but that's the good news. The bad news is we did not at any time envision this as a worship space until we had to do it. And we're doing the best we can, but it really is not well suited. Accessibility is terrible. I don't know how many fire codes we're in violation of.

And I thought these things were kind of funny too, until I started reading about the various church shootings, where the crazy guy shows up at the front door and starts shooting. And I'm like, wait a minute. The crazy guy who shows up at our front door, the first thing he's going to encounter is our kids. And then he'd come up, walk up the stairs and pick us off one by one. Not a good situation.

We need to do something about it. Okay, what are we going do about it? Well, we kept looking for places. I don't know how many warehouses we've looked at. Yeah, all of them, including those that were not for sale, but appeared to be vacant or not used in any event.

That led us to, among other things, thinking about divvying it up, having two spaces, A home office, place the storage stuff, get us out of the private and Melissa's living room. That's how we wound up in this space. This was going to be a small group meeting space, storage space, place to counsel, place for small meetings, great. We need more than that now. So how do we get there?

Well, we've been talking about that. We've basically gotten very frustrated. But the events that that led to Mark's gift kept coming back to us because we were I guess praying for the wrong thing and god was thinking about something else and had been thinking about something else for probably a year before we became aware of it, and we're able to buy this place with Mark's also God given assistance. And I should, we the backstory on Mark was Mark had been a successful tech guy early on, had sold his business, had little cash lying around, and had been told he had cancer, inoperable, not curable, two years to live or something like that. This was in 2019.

And that inspired him to, and he had the means to give, he was giving away his money basically, before he died. It turned out he lived a lot longer than the doctors thought he was going to live. He died a few weeks ago. Hard. So here we are, and what do we do next is the question.

And when we start thinking about it, we now have, we're sort of back where we were when we started, except we've got about $700,000 of equity in this place. Unfortunately, the only way to effectively use that equity is to sell this place. And that is a very difficult thing for a lot of us, myself included, but I'm afraid that's what we're gonna have to do. So I wanna give you a heads up when you see the for sale sign go up, that you are not surprised. And the plan is sell this place, do a major fundraising capital drive in the spring of next year.

And in the meantime, well actually not in the meantime, the first step is to find alternate worship space that we can afford on an ongoing basis for probably a couple of years, because what we really want to do is we want to buy some land and we want to build what we want to build to our specs, some dumpy warehouse that happened to be available. This is the queen of dumpy warehouses. Let me tell you. Full of insects and other crawly things. Anyhow, that's kind of the plan, and it's subject to enormous variations.

We don't really know where we're going, but we are confident because of the experience with Mark and God's response to our need at that time, we I think without, know, without exception, believe that if we move direction god wants us to move, he will make a way for us. One way or the other and it may not be what we expect. It wasn't the last time. It may not be this time either. But the board is committed to retaining the good things about this place.

Namely, I think particularly about the 20 fourseven aspect, Tuesday night worship service, all those things. Whatever we move to next will preserve all those things, all the activities that we have supported over the years and will continue to support. So, I think I've talked about enough. Brian? Thank you.

You ready?

Thank you, Bob, for sharing. Thank you guys for hearing the part of the the story of the journey of Tribe. If any of you have lived in this valley for a long time, you you know what it's like to carve out a living here even if you are a seasonal ninety day wonder. We love you. Ninety day wonders.

But if it were easy, everybody would live here. Right? I mean, it's one of the most beautiful locations in the entire world. And this is the place that God has called Lissa and I and our family to make home. We moved to the valley in '98 and we got married in '99.

Both of our children were born here. We love this valley. We love the people of this valley. We love this region and we also know that it is hard to make a go at it here. Right?

And this is such an amazing I I feel humbled to be a part of the work of the lord here in this valley, and I'm so glad that you are with us on this journey. And so we would ask that you would please be praying for us. Keep your eyes peeled. Again, I guess we don't want don't want any bug infested warehouses. I would have been fine with that, but it is definitely time for us to find our next home.

And so as we finish out this year and get into 2026, we'll be rolling out more specifics. Bob kind of gave us the big broad brush strokes. Thank you, Bob so much. Thank you for sharing. You.

Thank with you this morning, would you please open to Luke chapter one? And you're gonna have to go old school and either read it off your phone or your paper paper bible. Sorry. Our our screens were not cooperating with us this morning. And so you're gonna have to read it for yourself.

Luke chapter one. I'm gonna turn there myself. As we dive into today's conversation, it's gonna be short and sweet. Oh, preacher's famous last words. I just jinxed myself.

There is a connect card in your seat. If you are new or visiting, we'd love to have a record of your visit. There's also space on the back if you have a prayer request on staff meetings on Monday morning. We take those prayer requests very seriously. We would love to pray for you or celebrate with you.

So you can fill that out and either put it in a box tucked behind the poinsettia. Now in front of the poinsettia. Or, Kat, would you do me a favor? Could I get a little glass of water, please? And also, another unique distinctive about our Tribe fam is the format of service.

And so, because our venue is intimate, shall we say, thank you ma'am, because our venue is intimate, it lends itself to collaboration and communication and conversation. And so as we get into these few verses this morning, if you have a question or a comment or a connection, all you have to do is raise your hand and we'll call on you. Cat has the mic and you can you can share what you need to share and if you get really weird, either I'll just cut you off or I'll just get the train back on the tracks. So don't worry about it, it's gonna be good. You may not be able to trust every word that comes out of somebody's mouth, but you can trust me to referee things and get it back on track.

That's part of the risk of doing a conversational style, and I think that's why not many preachers like to do that because they're afraid of somebody saying something weird. I'm afraid of you saying something weird, but I'm quite confident in my ability to be able to just get us back on track. And I think there's maybe been of all of the services that we've had with this format, I think I can count on one hand the number of times somebody has offered something that I've either had to just cut it off and or do a major correction as soon as they got done speaking. And I only have to do that about once a month with Clay. Well, that's why that's why we love Nancy sitting right there with her pinchers close at hand.

Yes. Yes. Yes. We we love your contribution, Clay. Where did I tell y'all to turn this morning?

Luke. Luke. Alright. Let's take a Luke. Did you get it?

Did you get it? Luke. Let's take a Luke. Okay. Luke chapter one, and we're gonna read verses one through 20.

There's a lot of ground to cover there. It's a familiar passage if you've ever been to a Christmas service, but we're gonna look at this passage for just a few moment in a little bit different from a little bit different perspective and angle. And why don't we read this together? Meaning, let's take turns and read a few verses. So one person can start us off, read a few verses, pass it on, and we're gonna get all the way from Luke chapter one verse one through verse 20, whoever would like to start us off.

Alright. Luke chapter one verse one. Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. With this in mind, myself, investigated everything from the beginning. I too decided to write orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things that you have been taught.

First, in the time of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah who belonged to the priestly division of Abijah. His wife Elizabeth was also a descendant of Aaron. Both of them were righteous in the sight of God, observing all the Lord's commands and decrees blamelessly. But they were childless because Elizabeth was not able to conceive as they were both very old. Once when Zechariah's division was on duty and he was serving as priest before God, he was chosen by lot according to the custom of the priesthood to go into the temple of the Lord and burn incense.

And when the time of the burning of the incense came, all the assembled worshipers were praying outside.

Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him standing at the right side of the altar of incense. When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear. But the angel said to him, do not be afraid, Zechariah. Your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John.

He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born. He will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God, And he will go on before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. Zechariah asked the angel, how can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well along in years.

The angel said to him, I'm Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news. And now you will be silent and not be able to speak until the day this happens because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their appointed time.

To 20. Oh, there we go. Okay. We're going to be in a series of conversations starting this week from now until we get to Christmas, which was, if you can believe, it's only about three weeks away. Yeah.

And we're going to be looking at how Jesus fulfilled Old Testament prophecies about a future coming messiah. As we look backwards to the first advent, the arrival of the messiah, the people that were living these things and writing these things down, guess the New Testament, they were looking in the rearview mirror. But in the Old Testament, people were looking forward to a future coming messiah. We have the benefit of being able to look backwards. They were looking forward.

That makes sense. Right? And so we're going to look at who we know Jesus is from the lens and perspective of who the prophets in the Old Testament were looking forward for the Messiah to be. And in their eyes, as they looked forward, they were looking forward for a great hope. They were looking forward to a great hope to come to the nation of Israel to to be the savior of the world.

And so if you're taking notes, you can write at the top of your notes the title of the series that would be beautifully illustrated on this screen here called hope is here. That's the name of the that's where we're gonna spend the next couple just three weeks, I guess. Three weeks. Hope is Here because as they looked forward to the great hope, we get to experience and walk in and encounter and receive the hope that is here in the person of Jesus. So where we're going is hope is here, and you can write at the top of your notes week one, the promise of rest.

The promise of rest. And so as we just read in Luke chapter one, we see that there is a man. He's a high priest. His name is Zechariah. And Zechariah was Zechariah went into the holy of holies.

You we just read this. It was the day of atonement. He walks into the holy of holies. An angel meets them there meets him him there. There, and angel says, you're you're you're gonna have a son.

His name is to be John, and John is going to be the forerunner that will announce the arrival of the Messiah of Israel. Now we read these stories over and over and over again, but you need to take note of one significant detail that is most commonly overlooked, and it is so basic that you may have a hard time seeing it. And I'll see if I can ask you the right question to spark your brain to get you thinking in the way that the author of this scripture wants us to be thinking about this verse. Okay. To whom did the angel appear?

Zechariah. Okay. And who is Zechariah? Switch to this. Zechariah was the high priest of Israel, and he was the high priest on duty.

Okay. And, what was he the high priest on duty of what religion? Judaism. Okay. So when it comes to the announcement of the savior of the world, to whom did the angel go to first?

The high priest of Judaism, Israel. The angel did not first appear to the king of Babylon. The high priest did not appear to pharaoh in Egypt. The high priest did not appear to, somebody in one of the dynasties of China. It did not appear to, an emperor in Mongolia.

It did not appear to any tribal king in the Continent Of Africa. World. The angel appears to the high priest in the holy of holies in Israel. This is really important for us to know because there's so for us to remember because there are so many connection points that we as Christians have with Israel that it it welds us and our faith as Christians. It welds us together with our Jewish brothers and sisters living in Israel, The United States, and around the world.

Now that doesn't mean that we have to carte blanche endorse every single thing that Israel does in the same way that you don't have to carte blanche endorse every single thing, Andy, that your sisters do. Sometimes they do some things that you're like, hey. What are you even doing right now? But they will always be your sister. They will always be Maddie, and they will always be Autumn, always be your family.

In a similar way, Israel will always be our family. And so when we talk about this this broad category of of hope is is here, we need to understand that one of the big promises that Israel was looking forward to is this idea of rest. A key attribute of the Messiah is that he would bring rest for his people, Israel. Now today, we have the benefit of being able to see how the story plays out as we read the as we read the gospels. But the people back then in Zechariah's day, think about the cultural context or the geopolitical context in which unfolding.

In this exact moment that Zechariah is entering into the holy of holies, the nation of Israel was under governing occupation of what country or nation? Rome. They were an oppressed people subjugated to a system of apartheid specifically prejudiced against them. They were crying out for a messiah. They were crying out for a savior that would give them rest.

And I don't know about you, but if I were in their shoes, I would probably look for a warrior champion. I'm thinking of somebody like Arnold Schwarzenegger in predator with the camo and the mud. I'm thinking of somebody like Rambo with the with the bandana or maybe, Maximus Aurelius, a gladiator from the movie like, right? That's who I'm thinking of. And so, to paraphrase, the angel appears and says, your Rambo is coming.

Your liberator is coming who will give you rest. And how did that liberator arrive? In the form of a baby. What is more helpless than a baby besides me whenever Lissa leaves town? So I had to beat her to that answer.

I do. I just I'm like a wounded fawn. I just sit on the couch, and she's like, well, have you gone to the refrigerator? And I just call her, oh, I'm just so hungry. I'm I'm I'm I'm worse.

I am more pathetic than a defenseless baby. So Zechariah and all of Israel had looked for rest in the form of a conquering liberator to come charging on the scene. Instead, he arrives as a baby. And here's one thing that is really cool. We're gonna look at this in just a moment.

Is if we see if I hey. Is it working? Or does it keep flashing the ProPresenter logo? It hasn't? Oh, well, I never entered my keynote on there anyway, so it so it really doesn't even matter.

Great. Well, we're making minor improvements. So there are seven major feasts throughout the year that God has invited Israel to celebrate and partake of. And how many of you have been with us at tribe and know, like, what I'm talking about? We call them God's family traditions.

Every family has their unique tradition, and God's family is no different. And there of the seven feasts, if you can recall what the seven major feasts are through the year, I'm gonna rely heavily on our tribe fam that has been here and knows this. There is a feast that that the arrival of Jesus beautifully fulfilled, but in an unexpected way. And so this is gonna be a a a tricky question, but for our for our tribe fam that have been with us, can you think of what feast what I'll give you a hint. What fall feast is most likely lines up the closest with the arrival of Jesus and the fulfillment of that feast.

Sukkot. And if you're like, Sukkot, what is that? Why don't we read about it? Turn to Leviticus chapter 23. Hang a hard left.

I know that was for you, Clay. We're going all the way to Leviticus. Let's turn there. You think what good can come from the book of Leviticus? Amazing things come from the book of Leviticus.

Let's go to Leviticus chapter 23, and we're gonna read about the feast of Sukkot. So now whenever you get a Christmas card from grandma and and you the first thing you do when you get a Christmas card from grandma is what? How dare you? Just the fact that your grandmother I was looking at all of the young adults in the room, but you had the courage to be honest enough for all of them. So you quite oh, so so when you get a a Christmas card from grandma, it's always this, like, beautiful nativity scene and what time of when year I just gave it away.

What time of year is the nativity scene? Yeah. It's like there's, like, snow on the ground and, you know, like, Mary and Joseph are are bundled up. But let's hold that in our mind as we read about the feast of Sukkot to give us an idea of potentially, more accurately, what's going on in the season of Jesus' first advent, his arrival. Leviticus chapter 23, and I'm gonna read verse 33 through 34 for you.

Okay. And then the lord said to Moses, give the following instructions to the people of Israel. Begin celebrating the festival of festivals of shelters or booths or Sukkot on the fifteenth day of the appointed month, five days after the day of atonement. This festival to the Lord will last for seven days. On the first day of the festival, you must proclaim an official day of holy assembly or that word convocation, and part of that word has to do with a not only an assembly, but also for the purpose of gathering, but for the purpose of rehearsal, some future event.

When you do no ordinary work, verse 36, for seven days, you must present special gifts to the Lord. The eighth day is another holy day on which you present your special gifts to the Lord. This will be a solemn occasion, and no ordinary work may be done on that day. These are the Lord's appointed festivals. Celebrate them each year as official days for holy assembly by presenting special gifts to the Lord.

Offerings, grain offerings, sacrifices, liquid offerings, each on its proper day. These festivals must be observed in addition to Lord's regular Sabbath days and the offerings in addition to your personal gifts, the offering you give fully, you give to fulfill your vows and voluntary offerings you present to the Lord. Remember that the seventh day fest the seven day festival to the Lord, the festivals of shelters begins on the fifteenth day of the appointed month. After you have harvested all of the produce from the land, there's a clue, the first day and the eighth day of the festival will be days of complete, what does your bible say, rest. On the first day, gather branches from magnificent trees, palm fronds, boughs from leafy trees, and willows that grow by the streams, then celebrate with joy before the lord your god for seven days.

I'll I'll stop right there. So this is the prescription for celebrating God's family tradition known as Sukkot. How many of you in your family, you grew up as a part of a family that had an annual camping trip? Okay. Well, welcome to God's family because every year, God invites his kids to go camping.

For one week, you make a shelter or a booth or a tent, and you do life outside of your normal abode and in the tent. It's called the sukkah. And it looks very different to than our modern day, you know, like tech fabrics and aluminum poles and zippered rain flies and all of that. But the invitation was to build a shelter outside of your tent at the end of what time period for people of the agrarian calendar goes, at the end of the harvest. And the key optimal word there is it's an invitation for seven days to rest.

So here's the picture of the feast of Sukkot. We none of us live in an agrarian society. It's very difficult for us to put ourselves in their shoes, in their shoes. But all summer long, you've been tending crops, grain, grain crops like barley and wheat. You've been tending those crops.

Now the fall has happened. The summer rains have stopped, And just before the fall rains, the winter rains begin, temperatures are mild. And and if you look here down like Lockhart Ranch, you can see that they they have cows on the pasture in the winter. In the spring, they give birth to all the baby cows. How many of you love baby cow season around here?

Oh my gosh. It is so cute. I like to, like, ride my bike up and down past Raptor Jay to watch all the baby cows. And then they move their cows to a different pasture, and then those fields where are where they begin to grow hay grass. And then they'll cut it two, maybe three times, and then the then you go into the fall after that last cutting.

Similarly, in the nation of Israel, after the crops grew up, reached maturity, they were harvested. It is a lot of work during harvest season. And then to celebrate the culmination of the agricultural calendar cycle, they had an invitation to God's family tradition of resting after the harvest. And part of the rest is to remember how God has taken care of them and how God has provided for them. And he says, look at how the Lord has provided for you all of these years, even in your wanderings through the desert after Egypt before the promised land.

The Bible says that their shoes never wore out. They never got holes in their clothes. He provided manna for them. He provided water for them. He had and the Bible even says that there was not one person sick among them.

Amazing. He took great, great care of them. And every year, the invitation of God's family tradition was to remember how God took care of them. And so they were to celebrate a feast of the Lord, God's family tradition, by stepping outside of their all of their modern comfort and convenience in their home, and to dwell in sukkahs or shelters that were made, to remember two things, how God provides for them and how he is the ultimate source of rest. Now it is not known, and there's some debate about the actual calendar date birth of the Messiah, but many scholars believe that he was not born on December 25, but he was born sometime in the fall, and it lines up beautifully with the feast of Sukkot.

And if you look at the feast, you can see how Jesus' arrival in an unexpected way as a baby fulfills the feast of Sukkot because Jesus is our provision, and he is the one that gives us rest. So number one, Jesus is the source of our provision. And number two, Jesus is the source of our rest. The Old Testament feast was a rehearsal and a practice for the New Testament fulfillment, but in an unlikely way. Similarly, today, Jesus invites us into that relationship with him where he is the source of our provision and he is the one that gives us rest.

Let me just land the plane with two quick verses, and then we'll we'll invite the Lord to just whisper to our hearts. Here's this first verse. Jesus fulfills the feast of Sukkot by giving us rest by being our source of provision. Look at Philippians four nineteen. I'll read it to you.

Why don't you just write it down, and then you can come back and unpack it later. Philippians four nineteen. And this you want okay. I'll give you a second. Are you already there?

Well, yes, Nancy's like, yep. Click click click. Yep. Yep. Go ahead.

I'm ready. Yeah. Philippians four nineteen. And this same God who takes care of me will supply all of your needs from his glorious riches that have been given to us in Christ Jesus. Should I abandon this?

I know you are. You're doing great, baby. Philippians four nineteen. In the same god who takes care of me, Paul is speaking. And it's interesting that Paul says this because Paul is the one who's been through so much opposition and hardship and difficulties and beatings and being shipwrecked and stranded and mocked and abused.

And he says, oh, God takes such good care of me. That's a beautiful perspective. And he will supply all of your needs. Aaron, is your energy infinite or finite? Finite.

How about your finances? Finite. If it's otherwise, Bob would like to speak with you after service. How about your patience? Finite or infinite?

How about your tolerance for Brandon here? Finite or infinite? Well, okay. Don't answer. His resources are infinite, And we have a beautiful promise here that he is the source of our provision.

Let's just can we be humans here for a second? Our tendency is to get into worry, fear, and doubt, and stress, but the invitation is to realize that hope is here. Jesus is the fulfillment of the feast of Sukkot, and he is our source of provision. Do you know why Bob shared what he shared? Yes.

It's to inform us. But I believe that there is a deeper a deeper meaning. Is that as we step into our next home, we'll be able to rewind the tape. I mean, is anything on tape anymore? Sorry, Boden.

He's like, no, dude. No. We don't do that no more. We'll be able to review the tape and see what Bob said, and then look around us in our next space, whatever that's going to be, and be like, look how God has beautifully, wonderfully taken care of us. And no bugs.

And we can get rid of the bugs. That's the least of our worries. Jesus is the source of all of our needs. What need do you have this morning? It's human nature to stress and worry and try to figure out and overthink it yourself.

It's just human nature. But the invitation is to realize that hope is here and he is the source of our provision. How do I grab a hold of that? You just come to him in prayer. It's okay that you let him know your needs and what you're stressed out about, what you're overthinking.

That's okay. But in maturity, I hope that you end your prayer with but, just a big but. But, Lord, I know that you are the source of what I've just been talking about. Our schedules are busy, we don't have enough time, Christmas presents that we have to shop for after we've spent our Christmas money on ourselves. I deserve that, But he is the source of our provision, and and here's the last one.

Matthew eleven twenty eight, I know that you're familiar with this one. You can write the address down, Come back and read it later. Jesus, these are the red letters in your bible, and he says Jesus says, come to me all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Jesus is the fulfillment of Sukkot. The intention of Sukkot was after all of the busyness of the fall harvest to go on a camping trip with him, to stop all of the busyness that the Israelites had been involved with and the hard work of harvest and to just rest.

Jesus says, I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you because I'm humble and gentle in heart, and you will find what's the word again? Rest for your weary souls. For my yoke is easy to bear.

My burden that I give you is light. Don't answer this out loud, but hope is here. How much or how well do you live your everyday life with that reality? Would other people see that hope is here active and alive and vibrant in your heart? Or would they see you living as if hope is not here and they see you living just like you're living, stressed out and frantic and frenetic and trying to figure out on your own and stressed and troubled and it's the holidays.

Like, Clark Griswold, Merry Christmas. Gritted through your teeth. It's a beautiful invitation. Jesus beautifully fulfills the feast of Sukkot with the arrival of hope, and that he is the fulfillment of the promise of rest. Rest for your busy Christmas party schedule, rest for your holiday travel plans, rest for the the peace of your soul if this particular season is rough for you maybe you have you have some history of like not so great Christmases and this season brings up either either pain or the remembrance of loss or sorrow, he can provide rest for your weary soul.

Jesus, will you help us? I don't know a more I I can't pray a more eloquent prayer. I'm sorry other than, Jesus will you help us. We invite you to be our source of provision and we invite you to be our source of rest during this season thank you for beautifully fulfilling the feast of Sukkot would you take just a moment and whisper to him from your Speak to us. Just talk Let's look to the lord just one more way this morning, Amanda.

Right there where where we were in in Matthew When he said come all who I'll give you rest. Right after that chapter 12 verse 21 it says and his name Jesus will be called the hope of the world. And I believe as we Jesus being the hope how we're saying that he is our provision. Brian, if I may add to that sentence, I would say, Jesus is our provision and we let him define what provision means. We let Jesus define what that means.

Because so often, we feel let down or discouraged because it's not done the way we expected it to happen. And it's okay to be a human and have ex

and that's normal,

but I just feel like God works and moves so much more than we acknowledge or realize because he does it in his time and in his way. And scripture says that his timing in ways is perfect, infinitely perfect. So I would just encourage us with that too, and we see it in the Old Testament. Look look at the Israelites in their forty years in the wilderness. I mean, they were hungry and food fell out of the sky.

That's not what I would expect. They were thirsty. Moses hit a rock. Water came out of it. That's not what I would expect.

So if you look at the character character and and the the nature nature and the patterns of God, he's infinitely knowledgeable. And we just have our little finite, cute little brains that are only even with our brains, they're only operating what science says at, like, 10% or something. So just to kinda surrender to him is what I'm encouraging you to do. Not only is he he is our provision, but trust his ways and his timings. Let him define what that provision is.

And we every time we gather at tribe, we take just a moment to bring a portion of our finances. We call it our tithe. And we bring it to our local church, whether it's tribe or somewhere else. And when we give that, we just say, Lord, we love you and we trust you. This money, yeah, sure, I earned it with my work, but who gave you the ability to do that work?

Who gave

you legs to walk with? Who gave you the breath in your lungs? So it's a way that we just say, Lord, it's all yours anyway. We so love and trust you. So here's a portion of our finances that we give to our local church wherever that is, and it practically speaking does the work of the ministry.

So that's what we do here at Tribe every week. So I'm gonna pray for us ways that we give real quick before I pray here at tribe. We don't pass buckets, but if you have cash or check, again, that little box by the poinsettia. People say poinsettias. Yeah.

Or poinsettia. I don't know what's just don't eat it. It's poisonous. There's a little box right there by the poisonous plant, and then there's another one downstairs. Merry Christmas.

What says Merry Christmas more? Sorry. Downstairs, there's a lockbox too where you can put cash or check anytime because it's right outside and it's safe and secure, and we empty that regularly. So, we also have our website, tribejh.com, that you can always give. And then if you have a smart I know it's not on our screen right now, but you would just start a new number like you found a new friend and you're putting their number in, and that is (833) 369-7847.

So you can give anytime that way. So just pray together as a tribe family. Heavenly father, thank you so much for your unwavering faithfulness. Thank you that no matter where we are in our personal life, where we are as a tribe family, highs, lows, anywhere in between, God, you are there and you are faithful, and that never changes. Please forgive us personally and as a tribe family whenever we have doubted you or not seen how you're working or what you're doing.

Lord, we just wanna recommit to you today and every day. We just say we trust you. So as we all come today and whether it's now or a different pay rhythm, whatever it is, whenever we give to our local church, father, we just say we trust trust you with them to put your super on our natural act. Thank you that it goes to do the work of the ministry. What an honor it is to partner with you, the creator of the universe, to love our neighbors, to do the work of the ministry being your hands and your feet and your mouth to just love people who are far from you.

Love on them and draw them to you. What a privilege that is. So we say thank you. In Jesus' name, amen. Couple quick things, we'll get out of here.

If you have, ever been to a tribe Christmas Eve service, it's not here. It'll be at Town Square, and this year is no different. It's at 5PM this year. So we'll well, we have some giveaways. Yes.

Some little handouts. So we'll have some handouts next week to give you, but you don't ever say to a friend who you're wanting to invite, where or what what do you don't say? What are you doing for Christmas? Because that's just such an open ended thing that you say, where are you attending? And so then they're like,

I don't know.

And you're like, well, how about this? And you hand them a flyer in. It's 5PM on Town Square. It's a real low hanging fruit. Right?

It's an easy way to get somebody you work with or one of your friends who you've been praying for. This morning in worship with Lissa said, who's on your mind that you need that you've been praying for? If they're here or if they'll be here for Christmas Eve, boy, it's an easy way to introduce them to the gospel of Jesus. Beautiful environment and atmosphere there in Times Square. The rest of the things that, you need to know are right on the fridge, just where all of the important things on a family's living room is.

So check it out if you wanna sign up for Sunday goodies or Tuesday night meals. There's some stuff on there to join a prayer team, and you could always, always let us know if you have a secret talent or ability you wanna contribute to our family. Clay and Nancy bring them every week.

Hey, would you stand up? Can I pray for you real quick? Lord Jesus, thank you so much for being so good to us. Thank you that you are the fulfillment of the feast of Sukkot and that hope is here. I command a blessing over each and every person here this morning.

May we encounter your provision and your rest. Jesus, we tell you that we love you, and we tell you that we trust you. Thank you for being so good to us. Thank you that hope is here. Lord, give us a great week.

We pray these things in Jesus name, the strong son of god and everybody said, I love you so very much. Have a great week. Drive safe. Remember, you got this.