Whether you are here in person or engaging from home, we are thankful you have chosen to worship with us today. If it is your first time, welcome! we would love to get to know you better. Would you consider filling out our Next Steps card and let us know you stopped by?

At Grace Family we focus our worship on Sunday to impact our lives every other day of the week as well. We also believe no one is perfect but everyone is welcome to worship God with us. So, no matter where you're from, what you've done, or what your week has been like, let's worship God and learn from His word together today.

Everyone wants to go home.

Some of the magic of Christmas is found in the nostalgia.

The gift of Christmas is about looking to the future more than living in the past.

John 14:1

“Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me."

John 13:33

"33 Dear children, I will be with you only a little longer. And as I told the Jewish leaders, you will search for me, but you can’t come where I am going."

Can we trust God?

Isaiah 7:14

"14 All right then, the Lord himself will give you the sign. Look! The virgin[a] will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel (which means ‘God is with us’)."

Luke 1:69-70

"69 He has sent us a mighty Savior[a]

    from the royal line of his servant David,

70 just as he promised

    through his holy prophets long ago."

Can we trust God to do what we think is right? No.

Can we trust God to do what he says he is going to do? Yes.

John 14:2-4

"2 There is more than enough room in my Father’s home.[a] If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you?[b] 3 When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am. 4 And you know the way to where I am going.”

As followers of Jesus the place we will feel most at home is a place we have never been.

John 14:5

"5 “No, we don’t know, Lord,” Thomas said. “We have no idea where you are going, so how can we know the way?”

Going home can be hard if you don't know the way.

John 14:6-7

"6 Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. 7 If you had really known me, you would know who my Father is.[a] From now on, you do know him and have seen him!”"

Jesus not only expects you, he is setting a place for you.

You don't need to know the way or be the way, Jesus is.

When the time is right, Jesus will take you home.

Nostalgia is the desire to return to a place that no longer exists.

"I wish there was a way to know you're in the good old days before you've actually left them."

-Andy Bernard

Jesus didn't come to create nostalgia, Jesus promises to give us an eternal homecoming.

Revelation 22:1-5

"Then the angel showed me a river with the water of life, clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb. 2 It flowed down the center of the main street. On each side of the river grew a tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit,[a] with a fresh crop each month. The leaves were used for medicine to heal the nations.

3 No longer will there be a curse upon anything. For the throne of God and of the Lamb will be there, and his servants will worship him. 4 And they will see his face, and his name will be written on their foreheads. 5 And there will be no night there—no need for lamps or sun—for the Lord God will shine on them. And they will reign forever and ever."

The gift of Christmas is about looking to the future more than living in the past.

This Christmas, don't just look back with nostalgia. Look forward with anticipation.

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