Amen. Well, good morning, ACC. I'm so excited to be here. Like Miles said, I'm our youth pastor. So that just means I get to hang out with six through twelfth graders, very different on either side of the spectrum, both super fun. But it's awesome. Actually, if you're in six through 12th grade or you're a parent of somebody who is in that age range, I just want you to know we always have a little bit of a gap in what we do in our ministry from December to January. We have a lot of

college students who serve with us and they leave. Everybody's taking breaks and vacations and stuff. So this year we decided to produce a lot of content and put it on our Instagram. So at ACC Youth, Y, T, H. Yes, parents, it's cooler without the other letters.

We have a lot of different stuff up there, some funny, some serious. We have a daily little devotional thing. And I'm really passionate about that because students, I don't want us to isolate ourselves over this break. And so if you're a parent and you're like, hey, my student actually doesn't have Instagram or doesn't have a phone, If you reach out to me or any one of our leaders, we'll send the content right to them.

But I'm really excited about that just to bridge the gap in our ministry. But like Miles was saying, I've been here for a little while. I'm really excited to be here this morning. He was talking about some of the momentum that our youth program has been able to take off with. And that's been powerful. It's been so much fun getting to hang out with your students, or if you're a student, I love hanging out with you.

But what's really powerful is that comes from the top down. So we talk about Miles, but we also

have elders that lead this church. And it's incredible for me and just for our other staff

members to be under their leadership. They push vision and guidance so well for us. And the other cool thing is y'all see Miles preach most weeks. And we can all agree he's very, very talented, taking the word of God and making it applicable to our lives. But the really cool thing that I get to see in him week in and week out is that he's desperate for the Lord to use him in whatever situation that is, even if it's literally just setting it up for me to get to preach today. Because the powerful thing that he knows is that no matter who's standing on stage, whether it's him or Matt or myself or Gage, we know that we need the Holy Spirit to speak through us to you. It could be really good and you'd be like,

that was funny, that sounded good, they sounded confident, but we really need the Holy Spirit to speak to you. So I just want you to open yourself up to that. We're passionate about that. We believe the Word of God does not return void. And so I'm really excited to be here this morning. And so a few things about myself, Miles mentioned. I love Christmas. I'll get back to that in a second.

My wife, we've been married get back to that in a second.

My wife, we've been married for about a year and a half. She is amazing. Yes, Dana Payton,

thank you for being excited. We actually also just had our first child, and I think we're going to have a picture up on the screen.

He's super cute. His name is Maverick. I think the nap so hard,

joky shirts are really, really funny on babies, but generally just on babies. Gage made a joke

last week mentioning, thank the Lord that his son didn't have to play baby Jesus. Well, our son

did. And it was awesome and super fun, but Ann and I were a little nervous and pacing side stage the entire time. We're like, he's in the manger, is he going to freak out? He's on stage. But it's been awesome. I'm really excited to raise my son in a kids ministry led by Karen Snyder because it's been super, super powerful. Yeah, we're really excited about that. Really excited. Quick shout out to my fellow Bill's fans in the room, Buffalo Bill's fans. There we go. There's a few of us. It's shocking. If you know about the NFL, we just clinched the AFC East for the first time since 1995, the year I was born. So that's crazy, but we're very excited about that. Like Miles said, I do love Christmas. I love Christmas so much. Gage mentioned last week that we had a little bit of a dopamine hit, which is just a chemical in your brain that makes you excited or happy when we think about Christmas memories, when we get excited about Christmas. When he said that last week, I was like, man, I must get like a double hit every single time because I just like get antsy it starts in August I start

bouncing I'm like ooh we're moving into the time the good time of year and then October happens

and it's Halloween and I'm like all right we're really close like let's just get to game time

and then November 1st is game day I'm like it's just too much fun to to wait for so long but

I want to connect back to what Gage was talking about last week. So Gage

walked us through 400 years of waiting between the Old Testament and the New Testament. So we had a

gap in the story of the Bible from the people of Israel to when Jesus came. And so I want to pick up

right there. So if you have your Bibles, hold them up, hold them up for me. I love my students. One of them walked in and said, I'm so sorry, I don't have my Bible and I'm like, I'm going to publicly shame you, but I won't do it, but I love you. Miles and Gage both believe that Jim Carries the Grinch is an overrated Christmas movie. If you disagree, like you love that movie, please keep your Bible up in the air for me. Thank you. Thank you. These are the people that you want to watch Christmas movies with. We just know how to have fun. It's fine. It's awesome. Open with me to Matthew 1. Matthew 1, right at the end of the Old Testament, right at the beginning of the New Testament. We're going to open right there. just the first, first chapter of the Old Testament right at the beginning of the New Testament. We're going to open right there

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