Good morning, Crossland Community Church. We're so glad that you're here today. A beautiful, unbelievable Sunday before Christmas. And we shall never, as the people of God, grow tired, I should suspect, of celebrating the birth of our Lord and Savior. A powerful moment a little over 2,000 years ago that literally changed the world. But more than anything, it's changed the lives, honestly, of billions of people. And what I'm about to say next is not an exaggeration. It is not. But his birth was literally no more important than their rebirth. Because his birth was to lead to his death that would lead to their life. And this is the result that he always wanted. This is why he came to live perfectly. It's why he came to die painfully. It's why he rose triumphant. He's ascended into heaven. He's back where he always belonged and always was, seated at the right hand of the Father. And one day he's coming again, the judge of the living and the dead. And the kingdom of his, of which he's already King, will know no end. And nobody's going to celebrate any more than he is today. Because this is why he did what he did, that those who would come to believe in him would be saved of their sins through his blood, but be baptized in his name so that their lives would change until they see him once again.

And I hope that you will open the greatest gift this season that you will ever open. That's the gospel of Jesus Christ. That you might be saved as well. And then join us in these waters because we know you're going to join us in heaven.

Why don't you tell everybody who you are?

Jason Beach.

Jason, let me ask you two very important questions. Are you absolutely convinced you've accepted Christ as your Lord and Savior?

I am.

And are you convinced that he's accepted you as well?

Yes, I am.

What an honor, Jason. It really is an honor to baptize you as my brother. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We're buried together with Christ through baptism.

Why don't you tell everybody who you are?

And I'm suspecting that you belong to him, and he belongs to you.

That's absolutely beautiful. Are you absolutely convinced you've accepted Christ as your Lord and Savior?

I am.

And are you convinced that he's accepted you as well?

Yes.

What a beautiful opportunity it is now to baptize you as my sister. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We're buried together with Christ through baptism. You're raised to walk in it. God bless you. God bless you.

We actually are blessed to have six baptisms this hour, and then one next service, so come on in, brother. I'm going to baptize Dad, and I think Matt's going to join us somewhere along the line, and Matt's going to baptize the girls.

Hi, ladies. Why don't you tell everybody who you are?

Good. God, they just get bigger, don't they?

Why don't you tell everybody?

I thought he was big. Why don't you tell everybody who you are?

Chad Kincaid.

And Chad, let me ask you two very important questions. Are you absolutely convinced you've accepted Christ as your Lord and Savior?

Yes, sir.

And are you convinced that he's accepted you?

Yes, sir.

What an honor, Chad, to be in these waters with you. No, you hold me. There we go, brother. I know it seems like the little guy shouldn't be holding the big guy. I know. It's the gospel. It's backwards. It's an honor to be with you and your daughters. It really is. It's an honor also to baptize you as my brother. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, we're buried together with Christ and baptized. It's the walk. It's the life.

Trusting and knowing and believing that you were here before we got here. We need not invite you. It's your house. It's you who's inviting us. I know that sounds backwards, but what we need to do today is receive that invitation to accept the blessing of being in your presence. And the primary purpose of which is that we might be changed. So, Father, we just ask through the power and the presence of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, that you would do exactly that. It's in his name we pray. And all of God's people said, Amen.

You may be seated.

Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. And welcome. Welcome to Crossland Community Church. We are a community of refuge and hope for all people. So glad that you're here today. Hey, guests and visitors, we're especially thankful you're here. The Sunday before Christmas is just a beautiful day. And I hope we get a chance to see you again on Christmas Eve Eve or on Christmas Eve itself. In this room, we have two Eve services, one on Tuesday, one on Wednesday. They're both at 4 o'clock in this room. You need to get here on time because it does get quite crowded and it's well worth it. It's just about 45 minutes to 50 minutes of beautiful contemplative worship. We end with lighting of candles and singing Silent Night. It's just an absolutely beautiful experience to get us dialed in and focused correctly for celebrating the day of his birth. So please join us.

But even if you can't come, we'd love to know that you were here today. And you can let us know by simply taking your phone out and hitting the QR code that's at your feet. If you're on the floor, there's a QR code sitting at your feet. If you just point your camera at it, hit the little yellow link, it'll pop up. It'll take you to Linktree and you can select guest, give, prayer. All of them are on there. You can point your phone right there at the screen because if you're in the upper low seating, there is no QR code at your feet. But it's on the screen. It's on the front and on the back of the program. And on that guest card digitally, it's your typical name, address, phone number. I promise you, we're not going to use that information to bother you or to harass you. What we're going to do is celebrate you. We'll send you a letter this week. I love signing the letters. Love seeing all the names. I pray over all of you. I just ask God's favor to be poured out upon you. And so it's just an honor. Seriously, I just see your first name too, which I just get the letter. I don't get the envelope. So it's beautiful. And we would love to send that to you.

Now, if you prefer to do that with a guest card rather than your phone, in the card holder beneath your seat, right or left side, you'll find it right there. You can pop out one of the "I am here" cards. You can fill it out. And when you leave, take it with you. There's a mailbox. There's four mailboxes at the three doors that leave this auditorium. There's one on the second floor lobby. There's two or three on the first floor lobby and one at the sky bridge. So just drop it in there and we'll do the same thing with it. But even better than that, just go out the main doors and make a right and drop it off at Guest Services. And there we'll give you a gift bag thanking you for being here. We don't want to bribe you. We want to thank you is what I say. It's a beautiful coffee cup in there with literally a homemade shortbread cookie with our logo on it. It's a phenomenal cookie. We would love to give that to you. Just welcome you. If you do it digitally, they'll receive your name. The minute you hit send, that bag will be waiting for you when you get out that door. Okay? So just do it. We'd love to meet you and greet you.

In a moment or two, we'll also pray over today's offering that you brought into the house of God. You can do that digitally or with envelope, cash, and check. Same story. Hit the QR code or pop that envelope out. Fill that out and put it in any of the mailboxes that you go by on your way out.

Well, in December, I do all the giving talks. I take time to speak back to the congregation. Week one, we talked about just the expansive and I would even say explosive growth that we've been blessed with in our children's ministry over the years. It's always been a catalyst of growth. In fact, it is the children that are driving the direction of this church, to be quite honest with you. And that's the good news. It's really good news. And last week, we looked and we watched and we saw dozens of different people in that baptism video and realizing that as we move and drive forward, it isn't just about buildings. It isn't about bucks. It's about baptisms. It's about people's lives being changed. And it's probably 600 plus people have been baptized since we moved into this building. And it's astonishing to even get your head around that.

But it would be very reasonable to say, all right, let's just keep doing what we're doing. Let's just keep, don't rock the boat. Don't, let's just, Greg, get, you know, just settle down, Greg. It's okay, settle down. We've barely been in the building two years, but if you've been here any time at all, you know that's never going to happen until I get to heaven. And we're always looking at the horizon. We're always wondering and looking, what does God have for us next? And over the last 12 months or so, we've been working on something that only 11 people knew until a couple of weeks ago. And now the staff and those 11 know. And this morning, there's a whole host of people at our Glasgow campus who haven't heard a single solitary word about what they're going to see on the screen. Let's get ready to celebrate with them.

Well, good morning, church. I stand now on a little more than four and a half acres in a beautiful part of Barren County, Kentucky. And God has done something that no man could ever take credit for. But what has happened, as you will hear over the next 12 months or so, has happened through, honestly, the faithfulness of one man. And God proved through this one man's life that death had no hold on him and death cannot stop what God's going to do. And as he was taking his final breaths on this earth in the final 72 hours of his life, he called his son and said, hey, call Greg Farrell and tell them and tell Crossland if they want this piece of land, they can have it. I don't have no words to define to you how humanly impossible that could possibly have been. But for the last 12 plus months, we've been, as you know, we've moved very quietly and very strategically to do what God has called us to do. But once we know he's called us to do it, we stop at nothing to get it done. And 20 days ago, when you'll see this video, we purchased this land. And on this land, we will build a beautiful, a beautiful building. We're not going to build a church because we already have that. We're going to build a beautiful building for the continued expansion of our Glasgow campus and the efforts that God has called us to. But today and this morning, on Sunday morning, December 21st, 2025, I am absolutely honored to say to you and to everybody that because of the power of a good and great God, we now own 4.75 acres in the heart of Barren County in Glasgow, Kentucky. And we're getting ready to do what only God could do. So get ready to celebrate. You just better get ready.

We stand as a continuance of your promise that your people will have a place. And we stand on that soil. We claim this place now. This is no longer soil. This is sacred territory. And we declare that the evil one is not welcome from this moment until Christ comes back for all of us. We claim the lives of the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people who will be saved here. Their souls will be purchased here through the blood of Jesus Christ. This is now a place of refuge and hope for all people. And every inch of this territory belongs to you, belongs to your people. This is our place to declare the power of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. It's in his name that we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen.

Yeah. I know. I can't.

Today's sermon will speak a lot to the nature of this. Larry Glass, Sr., beautiful man. Larry was, in many ways, if you will, the Scotty of Barren County and Hart County. And he was just massively involved in road building, bridge building, earth moving. He was not my customer when I sold Caterpillar. But he was a customer of the Bowling Green office, so I knew Larry. And I know Larry, Jr. And they're just good and godly people. And Larry, Sr., having obviously no idea on the Friday before his death on a Sunday, he called Larry, Jr. in and said, Hey, let them have it for X. And X is ridiculously less than Y. And we'll never say publicly what we paid for it in honor of Larry. That we will not. You can ask. We're not telling you. Because I wouldn't tell anybody what you gave either, right? His dignity and honor. But directly across the street, they've already sold over 13 and a half acres. There's big box stores going in there, movie theater. Caddy corner to our property is Walmart. So when you look from where I was, right out to the left is Walmart. Right next to us is Tractor Supply. This whole area is getting ready to explode. And God had already had it on his heart. And he laid it on Larry's heart that this is where he wanted Crossland Community Church. So we'll be moving out of the shopping center. We'll build a building that we know how to do that. Timing and all that, we won't know that until later this year. We do all of our strategic financial planning next and all the building plans and all that. But you can't build anything until you own the land. And we own the land. And here's the good news. It was a substantial amount of money. Don't get me wrong. But compared to what it should have been for commercial property, it wasn't. And because of your giving, we wrote a check. Okay? And we were able to write a check for that. And when I say to you, contemplate your year-end giving, it's because things like that happen. And we need to be prepared to take advantage of those things. Our bills are paid for 2025. I promise you, they're paid. Okay? The only debt we have is on our loan on this building. And we're crushing it. All right? I promise you, we're not broke. But God is showing us that we have more to do, more to reach, places to go, and things to do. And so, yes, I want you to give normally as you would for the budget. Absolutely. But please prayerfully consider. Because who knows what God has waiting for us in '26 that we need to be positioned financially to take advantage of. And that's what you always do. So just prayerfully consider that. Okay? Let's pray.

Father, you outgive us. There's no question. We didn't buy that land. You did. In fact, I would go so far as to say you gave it to us. Father, it's your goodness. You're just good. And praise you, Almighty God, that you're all so great. Because just having a good plan without great power leave us with nothing more than a dream. But when your power meets your plan, we get a reality. We give to you today. In Jesus' name. Amen.

Failed to recognize also that Larry Glass Sr. is the grandfather of Dina Lindsay, who is the wife of Tyler Lindsay. And so, just may we never cease to be amazed. You know about Christmas Eve. The church will be closed from December 28th through January 2nd. That sounds about right. That sounds weird. But I'll just say those are the dates. We, oh yeah, it's Monday through Friday. Never mind.

Did I tell you I was sick last week? No, I wasn't. I was in the building. Did you know that? Actually, at 9:30 last week, I was in my office getting IVs. I was that sick. I got the eight. I did the eight and the 11. Sorry. 9:30. But I could not make it through 9:30 without a couple IVs. And so, just terrible virus beating my brains in. So, if you choose to give, you can postmark anything and put it in the mail before midnight on the 31st. You can do it digitally up to midnight. If there's a digital error, and it does happen because a lot of people who use the same infrastructure that we use would be trying to give, just notify us, okay? We'll get it in and backdate it. We're allowed to do that. If it's a digital error on our behalf, you will not be penalized. Don't tell anybody I said this, but if the check is dated 12/31, I'm not too concerned about the postmark. Get it? Big wink right there. So, even if you missed a mailman or a mailwoman, don't worry about that, okay?

Our Christmas show from last weekend, which I was unable to attend, I hear it was spectacular because I was sick, is online now for everybody to view, if you'd like to. Don't forget about Christmas Eve. Let's prepare our heart and mind as we get ready to worship God.

John wrote while on the island of Patmos, Revelation chapter 1 reads: The revelation from Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who testifies to everything he saw, that is, the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near. John, to the seven churches in the province of Asia, grace and peace to you from him who is, who was, and who is to come, and from the seven spirits before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us, and has freed us from our sins by his blood, and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve

Subject: Shocked but Not Surprised: Living in Advent Expectation

Dear Crossland Community Church,

I hope this finds you opening the greatest gift this season—the gospel of Jesus Christ—and celebrating both his birth and the rebirth he came to bring.

This past Sunday we celebrated the miracle of Christmas and reminded one another that his birth was never meant to stop at a manger but to lead to his death and our new life; we baptized six brothers and sisters as a living picture of that truth. I also shared the incredible news that, by God's goodness and the faithfulness of a man, Crossland now owns 4.75 acres in the heart of Barren County for our Glasgow campus — ground we claim as sacred territory where hundreds will be reached. Our bills for 2025 are paid, but God is clearly calling us to be ready for more, so please prayerfully consider year-end giving so we can move quickly when doors like this open.

So here’s my pastoral challenge: if you’ve never opened the gospel as your gift, do it now — receive Christ and join us in baptism; if you already belong to him, consider bringing someone who needs to hear this invitation. And please be intentional about year-end generosity — postmark by 12/31 or give digitally, scan the QR at your feet, or drop an “I am here” card at Guest Services — so we’re positioned to seize what God has next.

Blessings,
Crossland Community Church Team