Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:00:00]:
Good evening, everybody. How you guys doing? Hey, isn't this a super weekend? You know why, right? Because we're going to take communion tonight, celebrate what Jesus did for us. Oh yeah, there's a football game too, um, so, but, uh, God's still on the throne. Hey, this evening though, we're continuing the series we started, uh, last week called Matters of the Heart. And you know, the things that, that, uh, go on in our heart, it says, are the most important things, because what goes on in the heart often or will eventually play itself outside in the rest of our life. And this evening, you know, we want to continue this series and talking about some things that, that about how God made us to love and be loved. He made us to be connected to him, but he also made us to be connected to one another. And we're going to read some things out loud today.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:00:53]:
We're going to read— I want to do something a little different. We're going to have a scripture reading, before we really kind of jump into the rest of the message. And, um, and so I'm going to just read that, uh, out loud, and I'm going to ask you guys when we get to the end, we're going to read a certain part of that, um, together. And, um, and part of it is because, uh, this particular passage where we find um, Jesus, praying, uh, that Jesus doesn't pray for, um, to be heard by people. He doesn't pray because he wants to do a miracle. He's praying because he's connecting with his Father in heaven. And there's some things that we know as a result of that that will affect us in what we're talking about today. And so would you stand? We're gonna read this.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:01:47]:
I'm gonna read out this portion the first part of it, the vast majority of it. We're going to read that last line together, but let's stand in reverence for God, reverence for his word. And this is the word of God. It says in John verse 17, 20, Jesus says this: I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may be that they may all— all be one, just as you, Father, are in me and I in you, and they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. And the glory that you've given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one— I in them, you and me— that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and love them even as you love me. Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me. Why? That's what we're going to read together today. Hey, would you repeat after me just that last from— because what does it say? Let's read.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:02:58]:
Because you loved me before the foundation of the world. Because you loved me before the foundation of the world. You know what that means? Just that line alone means that love didn't begin when God created people, right? It pre-existed when God created people. It didn't begin when he created Adam and Eve, or even the angels. Their love was already in there. Where? Because it was in the foundation, before the foundations of the world, because relationships existed long before people did. Relationships existed long before the heavenly host did, because the Father loved the Son and the Son loved the Father. And there is something perfect in their relationship, something connecting.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:03:56]:
God has never been lonely. He never needed our companionship, but he valued our companionship. And so God's always lived in relationship. And, and we see this— Jesus is saying this: I— it's not just that I enjoy this. He says, I want you to enjoy it. I want you to be connected relationally. I want you to experience all that I have experienced. And, and you know what? And, and me and them and them and me.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:04:26]:
And he says that it will change the world. So do me a favor, would you just turn to your neighbor before you see this? It all started before the foundation of the world. Then you can have a seat. What started before the foundation of the world? Relationships, right? And as a means of this relationship, that when God said in Genesis 1:26, let us make man in our image that we understand something about what it means to be human. Because what it means to be human— when he says this, let us make man, it's not an accidental plural that's put in there. It's a very deliberate choice, because humanity created in the image of God means that we are made to reflect God's ways and God's nature. He is— he made us out of relationship, and he made us for relationship. And why is that important? Because today the Surgeon General of the United States says there's an epidemic that's raging in our nation, and it's called loneliness, right? And it says that 54% of the nation reports being lonely, right? And yet we know so clearly, even from this beginning, that that's not how we were made.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:06:03]:
We were made to be connected with God. We were made to be knowing one another. And that's Jesus's prayer, because that's what it means to be human. That's what it means to be made in the image of God. And so what does that show us is that when you have a longing to be known, an ache in your soul because you feel disconnected, a pain when relationships break or when we lose a loved one, that— or when a joy even happens because we share in the good news that someone's going on. These are not signs of weakness. They're not cultural trends. These are echoes of the image of the God that we bear.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:06:55]:
And so loneliness hurts us so deeply because we were made for more. We were made for not to experience these things. And that's why isolation can be so damaging. And we all know, not just— it's not just coming out of COVID because some of these things have persisted, right, for years now. Now, this is why sin doesn't just separate us from God, it separates us from one another. And when Jesus prays this prayer in John 17, he, he says something pretty stunning in 17:21. He says that they may all be one. Right? God wants everybody to be one, to have a sense of connection, a sense of unity, a sense of being known and knowing others.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:07:49]:
Just as you, Father, are in me and I in you. The Father and the Son are two distinct persons, the Spirit of God as well, the Holy Spirit as well, but there's a unity. That there's a nature they share. Jesus is saying that same relational life we can share. That's what he wants us to experience. And, and Christianity and this walk with Jesus is not just about forgiveness, obviously, right? It's, it's more than forgiveness, right? It's not just about going to heaven someday, although we hope both of those things are true as part of the package. But it's an invitation to relationship with God and one another. It's not enough just to have a relationship with God.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:08:37]:
We need a relationship with one another. Do me a favor, turn to your neighbor and say, I need you and you need me. And you might believe that or you might not be convinced, but we're not saved into isolation. We're saved into family. And so the human begin— this human story begins with this thing that we were created in the relationship and something was broken, that relationship, by sin, and redeemed back into relational life through Christ. But there's more to it. Last week we mentioned, you know, you can't really understand the human heart, even your own heart, right? And it says because our hearts are deceitful. It's deep.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:09:24]:
Your heart is deep. Your heart is complicated, and it's deceitful. And it says that even the broken human heart, that sometimes you can't understand these things till we understand the heart of God. We understand the heart of God, the nature of God, then we find that this concept of God in relationship eternally, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit It's not just abstract theology that we should understand and memorize, but it's a blueprint for the human soul, that every human being is created with the DNA to know and be known, right? We all long for it, because if we're created in the image of a relational God, then loneliness is not a minor problem. It isn't something that we should just joke about and kind of pretend like it doesn't matter or ignore it or just say it's a personality, somebody's personality, quote, quirk. It's not a season of life. Loneliness is what it feels like when something God designed for connection is living in disconnection. That's what loneliness is.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:10:40]:
And that's why this first problem comes not as a result of sin. This comes— loneliness can come before sin came in the picture, right? Because before sin even entered the picture, God said it's not good for man to be alone. You see, you can have a relationship with God and still be lonely. You can be walking with God and still sense that there's something— I'm supposed to have some other connection. But why is that? Because in Genesis 2, it says before the fall, right, that, that he says it's not good for man to be alone. I kind of got a little bit ahead of myself. I read that, and he said, I'll make a helper for him. And Adam walked with God Adam talked with God, right? Literally, Adam saw God, right? And, and he had purpose, he he had, had responsibility, he had leadership, but it still wasn't good that he was alone, which tells us something important: that loneliness doesn't just go away because you know Jesus.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:11:57]:
I wish that was true, but that's, that's not part of the image, right? That's not part of what we were made for. Loneliness is not simply solved by your spirituality. It's not solved by being productive. Those are good things. They're all essential things. It's not solved by comfort. It's not solved by success or how much money you make. And, and so we need to understand these things.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:12:28]:
Ecclesiastes 4:10 says this: Woe to him who is alone, for if he falls, there's not another to lift him up. Why, why woe to that person? Because we know loneliness weakens us. It makes temptation seem more enticing. It makes pain heavier.. It makes the lies that the enemy whispers more believable, right? Isolation is where discouragement grows strongest. And that's why the enemy strategy has always been the same, right? Separate, isolate, and disconnect. And, and when those things are in place, it doesn't just affect your emotions It affects your faith. It affects your body and soul.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:13:22]:
There's several major surveys that have happened recently. Some is the American Psychological Association and as well as the Cigna Healthcare Group. And, and what they found is that 54% of Americans say they feel isolated. 50% say they feel left out. 50% say they lack companionship. Roughly, uh, and, and you might have heard it said, right, that, that I don't know if you've heard it said, but I, I've heard it said that a senior is more likely to die from loneliness than he is from a heart attack or cancer, right, or some other thing. And you know that what CDC reports is it's true, because loneliness increases the risk for heart disease, for stroke, for depression and anxiety, higher incidence of diabetes, of cognitive decline. So it does— it's not just one thing that goes bad when somebody suffers from loneliness, but it's, it's a lot of things that can go bad.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:14:35]:
Now, But when it says this, 54% have experienced loneliness to some degree. Gen Z is the only group that experiences it more than anybody else. For Gen Zs, the statistics change. 54% said they feel nervous or anxiety due to loneliness, but 91% said they've experienced some kind of physical or emotional symptom of it in the last few months. Social media might be part of the problem. It intensifies some sense of being isolated because they're connected online consistently or constantly, but they don't feel known or that they really necessarily know other people, because it's not a passing phase. It's not something they're just growing out of. Gen Z, it's shaping their mental health, their physical health, and long-term well-being.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:15:43]:
It says it's increased risk for depression and anxiety, substance abuse, sleep problems, long-term cardiovascular issues, and it affects academic and work performance. That's the part of the problem. So 72%— I'm sorry, 72% of Gen Zs say they experience loneliness regularly. And so some of us, we don't need more information. What we need is more connection, a deeper connection, not a bigger crowd, but real community. Right? Not more followers, but we need a few friends. So what do we do if that's the case? What do we do? Well, we do what the early church did. See, the early church experienced real community because God's answer is not simply information.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:16:46]:
It's not simply be productive. It's community. We see in the early church when the Spirit of God moved and people experienced God, that what it led them to do was not to isolate because I know God. It led them to congregate because I know God, right? And or I want to get to know God. It didn't lead them to isolate. I just got to go this trail all by myself till I find Jesus or I find the answer. But because I'm on that journey, they came together. In Acts 2:42-46, it says this— maybe a familiar passage to many of us.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:17:29]:
It says, and they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship. So they had information in the breaking of bread and of prayers, but they did different things. They got together and they shared a meal and they prayed together. And then the fear of the Lord— then the fear came upon every soul, and many Wonders and signs were done through the apostles. In other words, there was miracles that was happening. Now all who believed were together and had all things in common. Let's say had all things in common. They weren't uniform, but they were unified, right? They— what happened to one affected the other.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:18:12]:
They, they were knowing one another and they were being known. By one another. How do we know? It says because they sold their possessions and goods, divided them all among each— among all, and as anyone had need. And so continuing— let's say the word continuing. So it wasn't a one-time issue, right? Anybody can respond to an emergency, right? You see an accident on the street and you're driving, what do you do? Right? People are— there's no cop, there's no, uh, uh, uh, uh, T— what do you call— EMS guys, right? There, there's no, um, maybe even other good Samaritans along the way. What do what you— would you do? Most of us, I think we would pull over, even if you don't know what to do, right? would— You, you maybe I can call 911. right? You would, We would stop, most of us. But It says this: But continuing daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:19:22]:
And the Lord added to their number daily— to the church daily— those who were being saved. Now, I, I'm not speaking about here as 'Hey, let's just have a program so that we can grow church.' the Um, it's, it's addressing this issue of loneliness is not just so that God can have a solution for the problem, but it's really a description about how people thrive, right? It's how the, the human condition works best. God's solution to loneliness is not try harder. God's solution to loneliness is you pick up your bootstraps and just— you got to just move forward, right? It, it's, it's about when Jesus saves us, he makes us part of a body. He brings us into a family. And that's why they didn't just gather together to get information. But they gather together for life. And so we need to, we need to respond to that, model that, invite to that, reach out to that.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:20:35]:
In Acts 2, after the Holy Spirit was poured out and the first visible community was pulled together, right, it says right there, 42 and 44, says they devoted themselves. Let's say devoted, right? You only devote yourself to something that you know is good or something that works, right? Right. We, we only devote ourselves to, to things that matter. They devoted themselves, it says, to the teaching. So they did want to know God more, but they also devoted themselves to one another. Why? Because they devoted themselves to fellowship. And there's something that when you want to know God— do you guys remember this time in your life? Have you ever experienced this? When I, when I first became a Christian, because I had never known Jesus and I never went to church, when I became a Christian, I just remember kind of walking along. I might be in line at the supermarket or seeing somebody, and, and that I see they have a cross, and I would be kind of like, well, do you— you know Jesus too? Because I was just amazed that God loved me and that God would work in my life.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:21:54]:
And when I found somebody else who was a believer, I instantly wanted to just, hey, what's your story, right? That's amazing, right? The same Jesus who lives in me, he lives in you, right? And, and something clicked, and nobody taught me that. But it was an unleashing of something in my soul that was dormant. They didn't believe they were just an individual, me, just me and Jesus, right? They had personal— they had personal disciplines, they had things that they did as a, as an individual, but but they belong together. That's the sign of community. It's an essential part, right? And it's a part that God wants to use for many of the ills in the matter of the heart. Because loneliness is not a failure of your faith, it's a signal that you were made for more relationship. That's what it's about. It's a warning for you.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:23:05]:
It's like the light going on. It's like the check engine light that goes on on your dashboard. Dashboard. And what do we do when the check engine light goes on? Normally nothing, right? How many of you guys— the check engine light, come on, nah, we need an O2 sensor or whatever. Like, uh, mine is still on in my car right now, but, uh, you know the whole thing, right? So, but it's— we're supposed to respond to this light. God heals loneliness not just by drawing us closer to him, but by drawing us closer to one another. Isolation is where faith actually gets, gets weakened. Community is a place where we, we stir one another to more loving good deeds.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:23:48]:
And so we don't just believe individually. We're— there's a power of believing together. They belong together. So how do we do that, right? Some of those things is, for some of us, we, we just kind of kind of not worry so much about quantity but quality. You don't need 1,000 friends, right? You might want, you know, 10,000 subscribers if you're a YouTube guy because you want to make money, right? But you don't need that for a life that thrives. You need friends, right? And you don't need to know the whole city. You don't need to know everybody, right? You you don't, don't have to walk down the street and everybody knows you and who you are. It's— it matters that when you come in the room, that people are happy and that you know them and they know you, right? We just need a few people like that and where we can talk and be free and be ourselves and be known and no others, right? But you'll need a regular, maybe a weekly, you know, time that you get together.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:25:03]:
You walk together, you talk together, you, you eat together, you, you play together, whatever it is. You, you know, you, you connect. And, and part of the reason why we need to improve those connections, that before we can do that, is we got to understand what the enemy has been telling us that has kept us isolated. Because I believe this isolation stems from what the enemy has whispered and we have kept telling ourselves. And so you have to deal with that, right? We have to deal with that. And one of those things is that maybe that you You can sell yourself. I don't know if anybody's ever told themselves, nobody sees, nobody cares, right? I don't know if anybody's told themselves, I don't belong. People don't really want to— they don't really want me, or I don't want to be a burden.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:26:06]:
I'll just be a burden. These thoughts, if you've ever felt them, and I know most of us have, They feel true, but they're generally inaccurate. They push us to withdraw, put up a wall to protect ourselves, right? Sometimes we withdraw so I don't have to be rejected, right? We protect ourselves, but what it does is only reinforces loneliness. You may not feel like you belong But God says that you do belong, right? Because that in, in Ephesians 1:6, it says in this aspect that we were brought together and accepted in Christ. You're not rejected, you're accepted in Christ. You're part of the family. You may feel that people don't really want me at times. 'But to be honest, is it because they don't know you and you have not known them?' Right? That these are lies that the enemy deals with us.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:27:22]:
'Nobody sees, nobody cares.' Maybe it's true that nobody has seen, and because nobody has seen, you feel like they don't care because they don't know. We need to reframe some of those isolating thought processes. We have to combat it by what the scripture says. Because why? The thing that you think in your head, that's what you'll experience, right? Proverbs 27:3 says this: for as he thinks within himself, so he is. So what do we do when you deal with those things? You gotta prioritize relationships. And for many people, you gotta focus on what you have in common, not what is different. In this politically kind of a polarized society, it says that many people, what contributes to isolation is this aspect of division. I don't know what to say.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:28:27]:
I don't want somebody to get mad. I don't want to create things, right? And so that's what happens. And so, you know, this aspect of dividing, and I hear this a lot, is that, man, I gotta cut this toxic person out of my life, right? And it's when I hear people say that, it's often a relative, right? It's often somebody like— sometimes it's a sibling. Right? It's, it's, I mean, sometimes it's parents. And this, I've heard all kinds of things, and I hear it relatively often, I think. And yet it says this in Proverbs 27:10: Do not forsake. Let's say, do not forsake. Who? Your own friend because they voted different than you.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:29:22]:
Because, and to be honest, I know for many people it's not that you look to do that. You're afraid they— your friend who believes differently than you, thinks differently than you, they'll do that, right? That's sometimes what our fear is. Because reality is, for most people in the church, they don't distance because somebody thinks different than them. The conservative side, on the political side, right? On the spiritual side, we don't— we're trying to reach them. Of course, we, we all know we all came from that. But don't forsake your own friend or your father's friend, right? It says that we ought to be building bridges, not creating divisions. We ought to be maintaining ties, not severing ties. And don't go to your brother's house in that day on your— of your calamity.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:30:16]:
In other words, he's not saying that your brother is unimportant. He says this— let's read that last part. Better is a neighbor who is near than a brother far away, right? Because before there was cars, before you could jump on a plane, if your brother lived 20 miles away, how do you get that place? You gotta walk it, you gotta hoof it. And so this is what he's saying, is that you got to make friends. Your only friends cannot be all the friends that you went to school with and they live all over the world, but you just, you, you dropped a, a social media post and, and they liked it, right? Or you like theirs. It's saying You got to have somebody that you can see, that you can, that you can shake their hand, that you can sit down and share a meal, right? Or drink a cup of coffee, or in my case, 2 cups of coffee. No, but, uh, when we see these things, right, we have to have face-to-face with people. This is, behold how good and pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:31:34]:
God blesses that. God blesses that. And that whole John 17, before Jesus talks about before the foundation of the world, he's— that's his prayer for all of us. We just have to be willing to embrace it. Hey, you know, I, I have I've said that I'm going to have for every message in this series some reflection exercises. And you might yourself might not be lonely, right? You yourself, half of you might be, half of you, if statistics prove to hold. But can you just ask yourself this? In, in relationships that you're already in, where am I showing up online or physically, but staying emotionally hidden. Because you can be married and still be lonely, right? Just as much as you can be single and be lonely.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:32:41]:
Second thing, what part of me do I consistently edit, minimize, or keep guarded. Because the thing that you don't say is the thing that grows and dominates your thoughts. And so what is it that you, you never let come out? Because you, you cut it short. You, you, you just— you might even make fun of it. But this is something that you're really kind of dealing with. And the third one is this: what am I afraid might happen if I were more honest? And you can think about that in, in your family, in your friendships, you know, maybe your buddies at work. You can think about these things in relationships that you already have, because we can be in relationships and have friends, and we do things together, but you still feel disconnected. You still feel unknown because loneliness isn't just about being alone, it's feeling unseen.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:33:53]:
The most lonely place, to be honest, can be in a crowd of people, but you feel like nobody knows you and nobody cares, right? And so, but on the vice versa, I can be living in a town of, city of millions, but if I had 5 good friends, right? If I had a bunch of good friends in that city, it doesn't matter how many people I don't know. It matters the ones that I do know, right? But you know what? You can be a church of 100, 200, and if you don't feel known, wow, that's still— you're still lonely, right? So God doesn't just invite us to belong, he invites us to be known. Community can't do what vulnerability, though, refuses to do. So we have to choose to be vulnerable. We have to choose to kind of share. And we're not talking about like, you know, after service and you go get something to eat or you get a cup of coffee and then you just say, hey, how are you doing? And you just go blah. That's not what I mean. Right? But that we create moments, create times where we can say what's really going on.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:35:31]:
And maybe it's not like, hey, let's tell our deepest, darkest secret. Maybe one of those things, and you might have heard me say this before, but sometimes it's learning how to just work some things into your conversation like this. Instead of just saying, how you doing? Maybe we can talk about, like, and I noticed that if I ask these 4 things and I talk about these 4 things, then I'll know something about somebody that I often don't know, even though I've known them for a long time. Because sometimes it's the things that we talk about here, about what's been good in our life, what's been bad or hard in our life. What are we looking forward to and what are we dreading? Those are the things that sometimes we don't say, right? We say only those things that are kind of safe to say. But you can say these things, you can talk about these things. Or maybe I would ask this: do we talk about these things in our closest relationships? Because if we don't talk about these things, then it's understandable why we feel disconnected or unknown. And so these are things I just want to encourage you.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:36:52]:
Maybe those are things that you can talk about in your closest relationships or relationships you want to be closer. Make sense? Hey, we're gonna close this portion, and we're going to take communion together. Um, but before we do, you know, can we just give the Holy Spirit some space to, to talk to us a little bit? Can we just invite him? Most people, we don't just want to just say, hey, I, you know, I'm— this is me, and, and all that. But, but the scripture says that the Lord is near to brokenhearted. Right? And so let's just ask, Father, as we finish this message, I thank you that we were designed by you to be people who are connected to you. We were made to connect with you spiritually, but we are also meant to be part of a family And not like the family, like, man, I don't— like, that's a cousin I met once in my life 40 years ago. But Father, to be connected like brothers and sisters, like good friends. And so Holy Spirit, we just want to give you space in this place.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:38:25]:
Because if some of us are carrying that burden of loneliness, and sometimes that, that thing just, it makes us feel more trapped because we can't share. Because maybe because we're a leader, or maybe because I'm already married, or maybe it's because I'm already, you know, I have friends. What is it going to say? What it's just saying is sometimes you want to be able to share what's been going bad and what are you dreading, and maybe some of those things that you, you wish would change. So maybe if you're feeling here this, this evening, if you're at home or you're in the house and you're saying, if you're just real honest that you feel disconnected, you feel lonely, you feel like you've been doing all these things all by yourself. God knows, but sometimes what's more important than the fact that God knows is that we know he knows. Because you never have to pray a word and God knows. We don't tell God so he can know. We talk to God so we can connect, and we can talk to God so that he can change us, or sometimes he changes situations.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:40:12]:
So because of that, it's not about being embarrassed or shamed. If you're just open to, to God, if you just open, if you just can say, Lord, I'm open to you today, if that's you, what we talked about, you know, with a head bowed and our eyes closed, we just raise our hand. To God and say, God, I, I just admit to you that's me. If that's you, just raise your hand and keep your hand raised, because I'm going to just say, can I want us— if you're just seated next to somebody and their hand is raised, not to Swarm them, but just maybe reach out a hand, put on their shoulder. Would you just thank them for their courage, their honesty? Father, we just say this. We, we're not here because we just need to be more— have more information or tick the box that we went to church. Father, we're here because we want to know you, because we want to grow in our faith. But Father, we want to become more like you.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:41:48]:
In order to become more like you, we need to thrive relationally. Family. Father, we need to be able to, to know our friends and neighbors and love them with our heart, but also to be known. Thank you, Lord. We were made to know and be known. So Spirit of God, we just ask, would you— whatever it is, whatever lies that people have believed Would you disarm it with the truth? Father, to the one who says, 'I don't belong,' said, thank you, Lord, that you saved us and made us part of the beloved. That, Lord, you gave your Son because, Lord, you were building your family. Thank you.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:42:44]:
Father, for those who say that nobody cares, nobody sees, would you put in us that, Lord, I, I cannot make somebody care, but Lord, no one can care if no one can see. So would you give us courage to, to be more honest, to be more open, and create the space for you to bring the answers that sometimes we've been praying for but we haven't moved toward. Sometimes it's not enough to pray, but you have to move toward that thing that you're praying for. So Father, we thank you for that. Would you lift heaviness and release comfort, restore hope And Father, would you let your love flow in this room and in every place where people are listening to you and connecting with you? Thank you, Lord. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:43:56]:
Hey, we're going to prepare our hearts. We're going to take our tithes and offerings. And, uh, not tithes and offerings— communion. I don't know why I said tithes and offerings, because it's after the I mean, service. um, and, uh, you know, we have the elements here, and, um, when, when we do, just come up. Would you come up? We'll take it together. Um, but yeah, just at your own pace. Let's come on up.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:47:51]:
You know, as we're holding our elements in front of us, this is what it says in Ephesians 2. It says in Ephesians 2:14, for he himself is our peace who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in the ordinances. That he might create in himself one new man in the place of two, so making peace. And what he's talking about is the people who have been the Jewish people and the people who have been the Gentile people, the people who are not Jewish. Instead of saying, hey, God didn't care about those Jewish people anymore, they broke the commandments So he just forsook them and he made the church. That's who God loves, is the church. And, and he's saying no, like there there was, was a wall, but he says this, he says, I tear down the walls that separate because I only have one people that I love. And then, you know what, he wants to tear down, I believe, other walls.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:49:16]:
Walls of guilt, walls of shame, walls of isolation, right? Walls of pride at times. Because when he died, family. he has one It's the people who know him, who love him. And so, Father, we just pray, Lord, even in our time, God, if there's something that you need us to get right with you, I pray that, Lord, we— you help us to point it out, surface it to us, that we might confess it, that we might repent. And I thank you that repent is such a great word because it means this, that, Lord, I was headed in the wrong direction, but I'm changing that direction. And Father, we're thankful. It's your sacrifice that makes forgiveness not just theoretical, it makes it reality. So Lord, thank you that we, we still need that.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:50:23]:
We still need it today. Lord, sometimes we We do the unthinkable, rebuild walls that was once torn down. And so, Father, we pray that as we take these elements, that whatever has been built that should not be there, Lord, would you tear it down? Would you continue to tear it down? And Father, the things that need to be built up, Lord, would be built by the grace and mercy and truth that is in Jesus. Thank you, because he's our Savior, he's our Master, he's our Shepherd, Lord, who gave his body on the cross, broken for me and all the people of God. Would you take the bread? And the blood, Lord, came to wash away our guilt, our shame, Lord, to clothe our nakedness with robes of righteousness. Thank you, Lord. We receive it in the cup as a symbol of your blood. Thank you, Spirit of God.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:51:48]:
You are here when your people draw near. Bless us, change us, and empower us this. with In Jesus' mighty name, God's people say amen. Amen.