[0:00] You are listening to a message from Southwood Presbyterian Church in Huntsville, Alabama. Our passion is to experience and express grace. Join us.
[0:13] I'm going to ask you all to bear with me this morning. Will just brought me the sheet of what I'm supposed to say, so I didn't have a chance to review it before he wrote it for me. If you have a Bible, open it to Luke chapter 5.
[0:26] We're going to be back in Luke this morning after the helpful sermon last week, the recap from Will of Daniel. It helped to settle my heart. I hope to settle some of your hearts as well, going into the election time last week.
[0:44] Feeling a little weighed down this morning, and I can't help but be impacted by the beginning of this service in a way I'd like to suggest for you to be impacted, because I think that it helps us look through this passage today.
[0:54] And this has just kind of been an overwhelming idea of the glory of Christ and how big he is. And that's a lot of what this passage has to speak about today.
[1:08] The glory of Jesus, the wonder of his eternal kingdom, the action of our loving Father throughout history, actual things that have happened to assure our salvation to us, his redemption of all of creation.
[1:24] I mean, this is big stuff, and this is what Luke is on about. So as we get back into it, I hope that our eyes are that big, and I hope that our hearts are open to hear what Dr. Luke tells us today.
[1:39] And we'll start in chapter 5 with verse 1, and we'll read all the way down through verse 16. On one occasion, while the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he was standing by the lake of Gennesaret, and he saw two boats by the lake, but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets.
[1:56] So he got into one of the boats, which was Simon's, and he asked them to put out a little on the land, and he sat down and taught the people from the boat. And when he'd finished speaking, he said to Simon, hey, go put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.
[2:09] And Simon answered him, Master, we've toiled all night and took nothing, but at your word, I'll go and let down the nets. When they'd done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking.
[2:24] They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and they filled both of the boats so that they began to sink. And when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart from me, for I'm a sinful man, O Lord.
[2:37] For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish that they'd taken. And also were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, don't be afraid.
[2:50] From now on, you'll be catching men. And when they'd brought their boats to the land, they left everything and followed him. And while he was in one of the cities, there came a man full of leprosy.
[3:02] When he saw Jesus, he fell on his face and begged him, Lord, if you will, you can make me clean. And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, I will be clean.
[3:14] And immediately the leprosy left him. And he charged him to tell no one, but go show yourself to the priest and make an offering for your cleansing as Moses commanded for a proof to them.
[3:25] But now, even more, the report about him went abroad, and great crowds gathered to hear him and to be healed of their infirmities. But he would withdraw to desolate places and pray.
[3:38] Let's pray. God, we're overwhelmed with the reality of your grace through your son, Jesus.
[3:48] We pondered David earlier and his great sins against you and against the kingdom of Israel and against Bathsheba and against Uriah.
[4:02] And we identify with the weight of who we are, the weight of what we bring to the table. And Jesus came to this earth to make our eyes big at the amount of grace you've shown throughout all of history, chasing down your people, chasing down your creation, bringing it back to yourself.
[4:29] So as we go through this text, I pray that the words of my mouth, the meditations of all of our hearts, will be pleasing unto you. And that we will know something more of how much you love us and how much grace we indeed receive through your son, Jesus.
[4:50] We pray this in his name and for the sake of his kingdom. Amen. Anything interesting happen to you guys this week?
[5:03] Anybody have anything maybe on Monday or Tuesday that was impactful, that caused you some trepidation or some excitement or anything like that? I'll share a story. On Tuesday, there's this big thing that happens every once in a while.
[5:21] It's our session meeting. And I was so touched by the men that lead this church.
[5:32] Not just Will and sometimes Ron, but the feeling in that room of men who were broken for the cause of Christ in the world, for the name of our God to be represented well.
[5:51] And starting from that point, not from a point of any kind of self-gratification or glorification, that just shaped me for the rest of the week.
[6:05] And so, I've had a pretty good week in that way. You know, it's not often that you can serve in a church where the session is like together and they love you and they love God and they really want to do what's best.
[6:18] So I was in a good place. And I think that our current circumstances often shape the way we look at truth and the way we look at what God's doing in the world.
[6:33] And so for me, that's what Tuesday was. For some other people, which there was some laughter, I didn't even know I was that funny, there was an election on Tuesday.
[6:46] That's all I have to say about that. I'm not speaking because I had something funny to say, but I know it's not that funny.
[6:58] So getting to this text, I think that the way we often approach life and the way that we approach the Bible and the way we approach scriptural truths, we get together in small groups and we pull our ignorance or we get together on the phone and we're kind of one-sided with somebody or oppositional with somebody else.
[7:14] We're all coming from it with this certain perspective. If it hasn't occurred to us, it hasn't occurred. The situation that is shaping my life right now is the way everybody should view and interpret Luke 5 that we're going to go through this morning.
[7:30] And I think this passage does a great job for us. I was trying to figure out, I had an illustration that I worked on in a PowerPoint for, or not a PowerPoint, an illustrator for about an hour and then I lost it. So I'm going to try to verbally give the illustration.
[7:45] And the best way that I can summarize it, I think that for all of us, this passage is going to do something well for us to expand, expand our thoughts of God, expand what He's doing in the world, expand what He's done in our hearts through Christ.
[8:04] And I think it's going to also serve to contract some of that. And this is going to happen simultaneously at various places throughout the passage as we go through it. And so the first place that we're going to look at things that will help us expand and contract our understanding of this text is in the call of Christ.
[8:26] Christ, as good Presbyterians you might be, or Reformed people, you might be familiar with the thought of the effectual call. Do you know what the effectual call is?
[8:38] It's that thing that Jesus did that made you believe. And it's exactly what it sounds like. It was a call from Him that affected you coming to Him.
[8:50] So I heard a pastor display it this way once. My wife is sick of this illustration, but I'm going to give it anyway. He said, imagine that you're in your bed and it's dark.
[9:01] Maybe it's 2 a.m. Your dog's not whimpering. Your kids are asleep. The lights are out and you're deep, deep and sound asleep. And someone walks into the room and leans into your ear and says, wake up!
[9:21] And you don't sit there and consider to yourself well. I was sleeping. Someone just yelled at me. I think I'll go back to sleep.
[9:33] No, you wake up. Someone screaming in your ear affects exactly the response that they're looking for. And that's the reality of the call of Christ in your heart and my heart and any believer's heart.
[9:45] God's heart and I think that I think it's interesting to consider that because, you know, do you believe? Do you believe in Jesus?
[9:58] Do you believe in him? The Bible makes it pretty simple as far as getting into heaven. John 3.16 Believe.
[10:09] He died for the whole world. Believe. Romans 3.22 Believe. Romans 10. Believe. And a lot of times, I mean, I can explain to you why you believe through Ephesians 1, through John 3.10, through Romans 9, right before Romans 10.
[10:34] But do you believe? And this gives us a picture in this passage of several different kinds of calls that Jesus issues here.
[10:45] First of all, we have a group of people sitting on the shore, probably not too dissimilar from what we're doing this morning. This guy has been doing miracles. He's interesting. He's a good speaker.
[10:57] Let's go down to hear him talk. And he did. And they came closer. His buddy Simon was there. He just healed his mom two weeks ago, right? It was longer than that.
[11:08] Put in Will's sermon two weeks ago. Pushed out in a boat. And he's calling these people, faithfully preaching the word, preaching truth to them, exposing who he is to them. Then there's a more specific kind of call.
[11:23] And I think that we can identify with this one as well. And this is the one that went to the guys in the boat. The first one's more of a general call. This is something we might recognize a little bit more.
[11:35] You know, the guys have just gotten in. You can imagine it's the end of a work day. They got nothing done. They're not going to get any money for their catch. They spend a ton of time in the water. And this carpenter who healed my mom, I like him.
[11:48] He's a good guy and all. But he tells me, you know, you're talking fisherman business now, man. We did this. Worked my fingers to the bone all night long. We didn't catch anything.
[12:00] And then there was still something in him, in Peter, that heard what Jesus was saying and said, you know, even though I've done all I can to control this situation today, tonight, I'm going to go out and do what he said.
[12:18] I think that's a call that we identify with a little bit more maybe in our lives as we tend to walk away from the reality of Jesus doing things for us and trust and obey for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus than to trust and obey.
[12:33] It's easy to say. I'm going to stop rhyming now. But that's often where we find ourselves. Jesus, thanks for getting me here. I've done a lot of work, though. Thanks for healing my mom.
[12:44] I've got it from here. I'm going to take care of it. We'll go out and work and we'll do our thing and I don't really need to listen to you as you tell me to go back out into the water and fish again. And then Jesus goes, yeah, do it.
[12:55] And you go, okay, yeah, do it. That sounds good. And this last call, this third call is the most poignant and seemingly dramatic.
[13:08] This leper, broken, ostracized, outcast from society. No hope for him in life at all.
[13:22] Can't get near people in this society. Lepers had to stay a certain number of paces away from people. And he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that if Jesus wills for him to be healed, he can be healed.
[13:44] More often than not, we find ourselves in that first group, much like we are this morning. You probably have plans already after today. Some of you are going to be lamenting. Auburn and Clemson fans are welcome to meet at Pastor Will's house to think about yesterday and consider it together.
[14:00] You're having dinner, traveling back to where you came from if you're a visitor. And we're thankful and we're grateful for this general call that Christ continues to give to us where we can be fed and we can be edified by fellowship and communion, literally communion and communion with each other, preached word, getting to sing songs, everything that goes along with corporate worship.
[14:22] This great thing. Look to your right and to your left. Seriously, look to your right and to your left. There's a good chance these people feel the way that you do. They love Jesus. They didn't come here to sit in a bubble and experience this worship service by themselves.
[14:36] They came here to be with you, to worship their Savior with you. That's an awesome thing. And it's great that God gives us this kind of call in our lives to be around each other.
[14:50] That second call, man, that second call is the one I hate to hear about. Over and over in my life I've learned that, and I'm young, I'm 35, I'm young, I understand that, but over and over in my life I've learned that I really try to sort things out and organize them and get them just so because God's given me this so I should be a good steward of it.
[15:13] Right? Is there anything wrong with stewardship? No, there's nothing wrong with stewardship. It's a good thing. But I begin to think that, you know, God, you gave me this, I'll take care of this.
[15:24] You go do the big stuff. You go hang out with the lepers. I'm going to do this thing in my life that you've given me. And God comes and takes it from you or it breaks down because of the sin of other people in your life, in your world.
[15:42] And so we go from these people who are generally happily going through life receiving that general call to those who are broken and we get broken by our own sin, choices we make actively against our spouse.
[15:54] Will was discussing something that I think most parents can empathize with. You know, it's stressful at the end of the night. Why? I have no idea. If I could put my finger on why it was stressful, I would not be stressed at the end of the night.
[16:07] And then we sit there, supposed to be our representatives of Jesus to our kids and treat them anything like but that. Our minds our minds betray us.
[16:21] Addictions, depression, awful, awful realities that are not in our plans. It's not supposed to be what I'm doing.
[16:38] And Jesus is there calling us in those moments to saying, rest on me in that. I know you've been out working all night.
[16:50] I know you think you've got it. And when you have nothing and you're left with nothing, you still have me. And I think both of these things push us down to where this contracts the most on us.
[17:08] Where you probably remember that time if you're saved in this room, you remember you remember that time where you were broken and you were brought to your knees at the reality of who Jesus is.
[17:20] How grievous your sins are against a holy God. You stopped comparing your sins to those around you and started comparing yourself to the one who created you and it drives you to your knees.
[17:34] And you say like Thomas or like Peter, my Lord, my God, only you can fix this brokenness that's in me. I'm cast out.
[17:45] I cheated on my wife. I cheated on my husband. My church has betrayed me. I'm alone. I'm ostracized. I'm depressed.
[17:58] Nobody knows it. I have cancer. I'm alone. I'm alone. My spouse is no longer in this world and people have stopped visiting me.
[18:09] I'm alone. And you're broken in that place. And you reach out knowing that Jesus, if you just reach down and touch me, if you'll just do that.
[18:25] Have you experienced these calls? Have you experienced that? The rest of my sermon doesn't really matter. I'm not sure the rest of this text makes sense to you if you haven't.
[18:37] That's why I started with do you believe? I want to implore you, believe. Belief is not that fleeting thing that you did once when you walked down the aisle or when you prayed the believer's prayer with your parents.
[18:52] Whether you're seven years old or you're 77 years old in this room. Belief is a continual understanding of who you've been called by.
[19:05] The continual call on your life and the continual understanding that if he didn't reach down effectually to touch you and heal you, there's nothing to believe in.
[19:20] So, the call of Christ is one way that we see him do this today. And the understanding of the call of Christ begins to contract that reality for us.
[19:33] What he's doing in men. Even as it begins to expand our understanding of what he's doing in the world. So, the next thing we would want to do is understand the care of Christ.
[19:47] And I think that's number two. I think that's full disclosure, I was going to leave blank underlines there to be more like Will and I actively chose against them. The care of Christ is the second way that this passage shows us.
[20:06] We actually see it in the same breakdowns as I used for the call of Christ. These people who are there in Luke 5, 1 through 3 on the shores, he cares for them.
[20:21] They're pressing in on him. He's tired. He's been teaching in the synagogues. He's been healing people. They won't leave him alone. They're everywhere. And they're pressing in on him. I lived at the beach.
[20:31] That was my only image in my mind. I know this is less of a beach scene and more of a bay scene or a lake scene. But can you imagine just people wanting to be around you that much and want to hear what you say?
[20:44] And I don't know if he had one of those big, booming preacher voices that could carry over an entire beach. But chances are if the crowd is of any substantial size, they were pressing in on trying to hear and that can get, man, your back's against the water.
[21:00] What's going to happen? And I see my buddy Peter and I say, hey man, let me get out in your boat. And he takes the time to think through how can I communicate with them? How can I be there for them? How can I continue issuing this truth to them?
[21:12] Who cared for them? A little thing like that to continue being able to speak to them so that more could hear him and maybe he could finish what he had to say. And for that same group, I asked Will about it this morning.
[21:25] There's nothing really substantial theologically to this, but it's a fair thought. When Peter and James and John left everything in the boats after they had just caught a ton of fish, well, something happened to those fish.
[21:37] They probably didn't sit in the boats and rot. So maybe that's another subtle way that he cared for those people who provided food for him after they hung out and listened to him. Again, that's not word of God.
[21:51] That was word of Peter. And then we see these guys, Peter, James, and John. Peter, always at the forefront putting his foot in his mouth. I can identify with this.
[22:02] I wish my parents had named me something else. He says, hey man, you don't know what you're doing. And Jesus said, yeah, go out and do it anyway. Can you imagine imagine the, what would you have done?
[22:20] I keep thinking I would have like cut my nets, gone into shore and been like, whatever, whatever you're doing, I'm doing, just tell me where we're going. But Jesus let them experience the joy of their work, simply, pulling in a big hall.
[22:36] But he had called them to be something more than just fisher men, as we see later in that passage. He called them to be fishers of men. You're going to be catching men.
[22:50] And he was preparing them to understand what following him was going to be like. Because they knew about the miracles. They'd seen them. Peter had seen one firsthand. And he was caring for them enough to show them, look, this is you too.
[23:07] And you're going to be my inner circle and come with me. And they did. And he led them to lepers. We'll talk about that more in a minute.
[23:19] Then he goes to the leper. And the care for the leper seems obvious, right? Jesus, the great rabbi, this one who's healing and teaching people, reaches down and touches this guy who's not supposed to be anywhere near him.
[23:31] That's not supposed to be how this worked. Will lepers stay over in their leper column? And this could have been anything back then from psoriasis to Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves, where you lost your ear, my love.
[23:45] Did I just date myself with Robin Hood men? Anyway. And Jesus does that. That's simple care. The thing I, it's interesting that we lose in this, and Mark has a little bit different take on this, but Jesus takes care of the guy to make sure he knows how to properly get back into society.
[24:02] in society. Because it would have been easy for the dude, and we've seen Jesus saying to them over and over again, he's been shutting demons up. He's been telling his disciples, don't say that I'm the Christ for his purposes and his time.
[24:16] And it would have been easier for him, or for this guy, to jump up and be like, whoa, Jesus cast a demon out of me. This whole system we have of Levitical stuff, that's going away. I can see it.
[24:26] Can you believe what this guy did to me? And Jesus is really careful to say, hey, go back to them and show them so that you can satisfy the law. You can be cleared by the priests who are the only people who can tell you that you're clean and properly put you back into society.
[24:45] We need to take great care of him to show him that and to do something little like that. So, I mean, it was this physical need, but it was this need that the guy probably was not even thinking about. And again, I mean, this is the kind of care that he shows to you and I.
[25:03] And it expands our view of care a little bit when we think about this thing that you struggle to do and get up and get to church by 10.30. If you're under the age of 20, you know I just spoke a real truth to you.
[25:19] This thing of getting up and going to church means something. You're communing with believers. You're hearing God's word preached. You're seeing all of those kind of things that mean something.
[25:32] There's something of God's care in that for you. And we can approach it with more of a sense of joy than we have to with a sense of work. My wife is my superhero in so many ways.
[25:45] The devil led us to get a dog yesterday. And so, in getting four, buddy, I'm just kidding. I love the dog.
[26:00] It was always amazing to me that I would just get up and do my own thing on Sunday mornings because you get here and got to work and all that kind of stuff. And she somehow gets four boys under the age of 10 out of bed, clean, dressed, teeth brushed.
[26:16] A couple of weeks ago she put an Instagram photo up that I was going, man, I can't, that happened at my house. That is amazing. So she's a superhero for that. And all of us have that kind of thing whether it's sleep or children or tough things at work.
[26:30] A lot of us get paid to do way more than we can possibly fit into 50 hours or 60 hours in a week that most of us work. There's plenty of reasons not to come here. And yet, this is something that shows Christ's care for his church.
[26:47] The church that, there's a little bit of politics for you. The church that existed before the American experiment began. The church that will exist long after the American experiment.
[27:00] I mean, well, Lord Jesus, come now. Save you all from the rest of my sermon and that would be an awesome thing for all of us. But generally speaking, the Lord tarries. This is what he's given us.
[27:13] This is what he's given us. This is the care he's given us generally. And it's awesome that it doesn't matter how you feel coming in. Because we're all here with that stuff.
[27:26] We're here with parents who are needing way too much care from us. That's unfair. Children who are making terrible decisions.
[27:40] Loneliness. It's all here. It's all around you. You look to your left and to your right again. And these are people who identify with you not only in how much God has called them specifically and their need for a savior but also in life didn't stop because of that.
[28:02] Sin didn't stop because of that. Unexplainable things didn't stop because of that. You know, our understanding is not any kind of precondition to faithfulness.
[28:15] we don't always know what God's on about. We want to but we don't. And this is a place where you get to come and be beside people in your brokenness, in that lowly state, in the state of just kind of being here.
[28:31] That's a great care for God's people. And for these guys who are sowing their nets after a bad catch.
[28:41] I mean, if you're a salesman and you've had a dry spell for the last three weeks, no sale, no money. Some of your jobs are impacted by a presidential change and potential change in policy.
[28:54] That's very real. You've worked and organized your time in such a way that your career is headed on this trajectory and all of that could be up in the air. Some of us just make bad decisions at work and we finally got caught for them.
[29:10] and we planned not on getting caught. And Jesus meets us there and shows us his care for us by saying, yeah, but you move forward because you're one of mine.
[29:28] The things that I've called you to do are because of my reasons and you can't see that there is a giant catch out there. I'm not necessarily talking about men but I'm talking about the reality of what God has set in motion to happen and that our role sometimes is just to get in the boat and go out and let down the nets.
[29:53] Whatever that looks like. That short bit of momentary faithfulness. God cares for you enough. Jesus cares for you enough that he's still orchestrating those things in spite of our desire to control and desire to basically tell him you don't really know what's going on with me because the last time I trusted you I had nine businesses go under because you had told me things were going to go a certain way and I had really aligned my life that way and then none of it worked out.
[30:27] That's a personal story for me and in spite of my lack of understanding and the place that I was kind of brought low to I was really just rebelling against my own desire to control.
[30:47] God didn't know what he was doing because if he knew what he was doing my 5, 10, and 15 year plan would still be happening. My investment broker would still know my first name.
[30:59] That was my plan. That wasn't God's plan. And God wants to satisfy us. But I guess it's John Piper that says that we're most satisfied in life when we're satisfied in him because he's doing things.
[31:19] He cares for us and we think we know everything. We're like petulant two-year-olds. I want my lollipop before bed. I want it. You've already brushed your teeth. Sometimes we get a specific answer like that.
[31:32] Sometimes we don't know the answer but we just have to trust that God is really doing what he's supposed to. George Mayer and I were talking about this after Sunday school a few minutes ago. Where does our view of God as this abusive father come from?
[31:47] and I think I can identify it in my own heart and I think that I turn around and project that on him even though the Bible is nothing but a story of how much he loves and cares for us enough that he sent his son who he was in perfect relationship with.
[32:08] If you have a child if you have a dog that you love if you have a cat that you love you can't imagine sacrificing that thing for much and imagine if there was none of that brokenness and sin in your relationship there was perfect intimacy that's the reality of what Christ sent what Christ being sent to us is and we think that somehow our bad decisions are what are driving God's love for us when God is on about this work in the world that has everything to do with us and has nothing to do with us it contracts all the way to you and it expands into places that are amazing and that's the third place third thing I think we can see from this passage Jesus shows us something really unique here we're going to get to the third point in a second
[33:14] I like this because he he talks about what he does in 516 he withdraws to desolate places and pray and this is setting up the third point Jesus needs that intimacy with his father and this is something he's showing to us about the way that we commune with God in our need for prayer because our prayer so often starts out with God I've got a chance to sell four fire trucks today I really want this deal to go through it would be awesome for me and Sarah and the kids and please make it happen or God I've got to preach this morning I hope I don't sound like an idiot please fill in the blank of how our prayers start that way God I just I know my kid's been out drinking all weekend and I can't figure out how I'm going to talk to him about this or her about this
[34:17] God my mom turned the heater up to 80 for no apparent reason again and mixed all of her pills up and turned the oven on and then she was laying underneath of the couch on the porch even though she can barely get up and that was even before I had to start talking to her and trying to get through that line of communication you know we pray about things so centered on us that we forget about Christ's call on our hearts and we forget about the care that he's actually showing us and promised to show us in these situations and we forget about his cause in the world because our minutia and that's point three go ahead Blake the minutia in our lives are so big and so real to us and I said that very specifically
[35:26] I said minutia because as the cause of Christ is expanding in our minds it feels like what's going on with me must not really matter that much in the grand scheme of things but the reality is that Christ cares so much that he pursues even us in those moments for you to know that he's there with you that he's experienced every kind of temptation and every kind of brokenness and that little thing that you're dealing with matters to him it matters to him because he loves you it matters to him because he's on about this huge work in the world what did he come to do we've seen it earlier here in Luke a couple weeks ago I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God in other towns as well because I was sent for this remember what the angel said to Mary he'll be great and he'll be called the son of the most high and the
[36:27] Lord God will give him the throne of his father David and he'll reign over the house of Jacob forever and of his kingdom there will be no end and then he read a prophecy and then said it was about him in Luke 4 as well go to the next slide Blake the spirit the spirit of the Lord is upon me to proclaim good news to the poor he sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives to recover the sight of the blind and to set at liberty those who are oppressed to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor that's his messianic understanding of himself this is Christ's cause in the world to be as big as the king of everything and be the one that walks to you and says I love you I'm going to free you from this I'm going to put you in right communion with your father the linchpin of all of biblical history
[37:34] God promised Abraham he was going to make his people into a great nation and they would bless the world they probably had a different idea of what that might look like also you look through their history adulterous kings bad judges whole generations of people who turned their back on God despite a few who wanted to keep the covenant Deuteronomy talks about the same thing the people of God I'm going to make a blessing to the nations we can't do it we failed every step of the way but God kept his promise in Christ to you individually he's keeping it to the world that's that's the scope of what Jesus is on we talked about communion in senior high Sunday school today how important is this table how incredible is this table the call of
[38:38] Christ on your heart making you a believer has more to do with your understanding of his mission in the world we talk about faithfulness and not sinning the mortification of the flesh is the way that Paul words it and we get bogged down in this idea that God wants us walking on our knees up the stairs and flogging ourselves your holy response to the righteousness given to us by Christ is out of an understanding of what he's done for you and what he's doing in the world that bit of faithfulness to your children when you're putting them to bed at night plays into God redeeming everything to himself through Christ that's what your faithfulness means students your parents aren't harping on you about smoking marijuana and drinking because they are worried about anything less than the impact that has on the kingdom that's how big that is and here's the really great news of all of it which is why we don't come to this table as a funeral dirge we come to remember
[40:04] Christ until he comes again his death until he comes again well what's the implication of the death of Christ he died and a lot of times we sit there and we hang our heads because our sin like we read David in Psalm 51 our sin is so grievous and we feel it and the reason you feel guilt and shame in your sin now is because you know we look down as the music plays and we get up and we somberly walk down the aisle and we kind of look the elder pastor in the eye and we take communion the death of Christ is the best thing that could have ever happened to us he reached down to us who had ostracized ourselves from God we made ourselves lovers other people didn't do that we did that this table is an amazing thing because it tells us about Christ rising again and the implications of what that means for us this as much as representing the death and our sin if not more is representing when this care he shown us as a community of believers we get to be with him at the wedding feast of the lamb this is a practice for eternity together it's not about you it's not about me it's all about
[41:32] Christ our decisions we make every day all about Christ I didn't fall the care he's shown us to you loving you individually equipping you all about Christ he's so big his glory is so huge and I think this pastor did a good job of showing us that he loves you he loves you so much he's called you into something really big what you do matters but his love for you is bigger than the wrong that you can do it's amazing it doesn't make sense to us because I want to work and I want to make it about me when I screw up I want and Jesus says I love you and God says I love you but it's all about Christ let's pray
[42:33] God thank you for your mercy to us and your tender care your love for us when we don't deserve it and I pray that we will understand more about the grace that you've offered us through your son Jesus I pray that we will look expectantly at this table as we get the chance to participate together in remembering your son but thank you for loving us thank you for calling us thank you for caring for us thank you for opening our eyes more to the cause of your son in the world make his kingdom big and make it big in our own eyes in Jesus name we pray amen what a joy it is to come and celebrate together the care of Jesus for us that extends into the details of our lives and also to giving his life for us that he might be with us forever remember how
[43:39] Paul wrote about this institution of this supper he says in first Corinthians for I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread and when he had given thanks he broke it and said this is my body which is for you do this in remembrance of me in the same way also he took the cup after supper saying this cup is the new covenant in my blood do this as the friends and embrace him by faith come and rejoice you don't have to be a member of this church if you are a member of any church that rejoices in
[44:52] King Jesus and his salvation come and celebrate with us if you don't know him if these things sound strange to you and maybe you want to know more my encouragement to you this morning would be don't come to this table to an outward representation of something that that's not true yet of you inwardly rather come to Jesus himself come and know him we'd love to talk with you about him the relationship he desires with you is significant enough that he would give his life for it we'd love to share that joy with you let's pray and then we'll come together father thank you for this reminder of your love that you know we need you want us to taste again and see that you are good set these common elements aside for a sacred purpose this morning in our hearts we ask in Jesus name amen for more information visit us online at southwood.org