Would you take your copy of the Word of God and turn with me to Luke chapter 22?
!
Luke chapter 22, we're going to look at verse 14.
In just a few minutes, we are going to take communion together, or otherwise known as
the Lord's Supper, the Lord's Table.
How many of you grew up in church taking communion or the Lord's Supper?
Would you slip your hand up?
Good.
For many of you, this will be very familiar.
It'll feel normal.
The bread, the cup, the quiet reflection.
It's part of what we do in church.
For some of you, if you didn't grow up that way, it might feel very strange what we're
about to do.
And if we stop and think about it, it is kind of a strange practice.
But we're going to look at what Jesus teaches about it and say, why do we do this?
Why do we pass out a tiny little cracker and a tiny little cup of grape juice?
And why do we read in scripture that Jesus says, when you do this, this is my body and
this is my blood?
Sounds weird, doesn't it?
If you think about it.
If you didn't grow up with it and you're not used to it, then it might feel strange.
But it's also easy for those of us who did grow up with it to forget how truly radical
this is, how truly life-changing this practice is supposed to be.
So let's look at Luke chapter 22.
We'll look at verse 19 first.
And he took the bread, gave thanks and broke it.
And he gave it to them.
Of course, this is Jesus doing this.
And he said, this is my body given for you.
Do this in remembrance of me.
In the same way, after the supper, he took the cup saying, this cup is the new covenant
in my blood, which is poured out for you.
That's what this moment is all about.
Jesus for us.
You can actually summarize and reduce the gospel message or the good news story of Jesus down
to those three words.
Jesus for us.
He took our place.
And what he was doing with this practice, which he then said, do it in remembrance of me as
often as you'll do it.
Some churches do it every single Sunday, every time they meet.
Some churches do it once a month.
This church does it four times a year quarterly.
We'll gather together and we'll remember what Jesus did for us.
But it's not just a ritual.
So much more than a ritual.
And it's not just a reenactment.
We're not just putting the famous picture of the Lord's Supper and Jesus and his disciples
up on the screen and trying to reenact what Jesus did.
It's so much more than that.
It's a declaration that the entire story of God and his dealings with man, thousands of
years long, written across generations and covenants and kings, has reached its climax
with sacrifice.
And that's what we're going to talk about today.
Sacrifice.
Covenants.
The promise and the price.
A promise made long before you or I was born.
And a price that was paid when you and I could not pay anything back.
So let's look at number one, the price.
What sacrifice really is.
We read it just a moment ago.
Jesus took the bread.
He gave it.
He broke it.
And he said, this is my body given for you.
This was the sacrifice.
He said, this cup is my blood poured out for you.
There was a real cost, a real price to be paid in this situation.
Why was that?
Jesus said, this cup is the new covenant in my blood.
Let's stop there for a moment and figure out what he's teaching us.
No rabbi, Jewish rabbi.
Remember, it's easy.
We had our starting point course this morning.
Just kick off upstairs, room 203.
If you're not in Sunday school, come jump in and join us in room 203 with our starting point class.
But we stopped and we had to say, look, it's easy to just look at the Christian faith as we see it today and forget its roots.
Forget its origins.
You realize that Jesus was seen as a Jewish rabbi.
And so people expected him to be like the other Jewish rabbis or teachers.
But he wasn't.
He was saying different things.
He was teaching radically different things than anyone else was teaching.
And ultimately, he came to say that I am God.
I am the Messiah.
I am the one that you've been waiting for.
I'm not here just to teach you about God.
I'm here to reveal God to you.
It's me.
My father has sent me.
So we have to go back to the beginnings and remember that this is the faith that we're holding on to.
It's this radical spinoff of that Jewish faith that turns it on its head and says, now it's all about Jesus.
It's not about the law anymore.
It's not about the Ten Commandments anymore.
It's not about impressing God.
It's about the person of Jesus choosing him and following him.
And so no rabbi had ever said, this cup is the new covenant in my blood.
The old covenants were treasured by the Jewish people.
They were lifted up.
They were held onto as precious gifts from God.
And Jesus is here to introduce a new covenant.
No teacher had ever dared to make himself the sacrifice.
But that's exactly what Jesus was.
He wasn't just teaching us about forgiveness.
He was literally purchasing forgiveness with his blood.
The language we read in the New Testament about what Jesus did on the cross for us is transactional.
He bought us back.
The word is redeemed.
He purchased us with his blood.
Why?
Why was that necessary?
Because you and I had sinned.
You and I still sin, don't we?
We still break God's laws.
We still go astray.
Every one of us has gone into our own ways.
And God has poured out on his son, Jesus, the iniquity or the sin, the wrongdoing of all of us.
He took the punishment.
He was the sacrifice.
But we cheapen the word sacrifice.
We'll use the word sacrifice in our day-to-day life.
You say, I sacrificed my Saturday morning to go help somebody move.
Maybe that was a sacrifice in your mind, but it pales in comparison to the real sacrifice that Jesus was, right?
Say, I sacrificed my dessert for my diet.
Sometimes that feels like a sacrifice, all right?
Let's be real.
They just gave me a bunch of candy.
And I'm trying to think, how much of that can I actually eat?
How much of that do I have to sacrifice and give away to you people?
But the sacrifices we make are not real sacrifices.
Jesus was a sacrifice.
He gave everything.
He paid the ultimate price.
In the Bible, sacrifice isn't about inconvenience.
It's about substitution.
Placing yourself in someone else's place to receive wrath, to receive penalty, to receive suffering.
Something or someone dies so that someone else can live.
The Jewish people would have understood that.
Because animal sacrifices had been dating back to their earliest origins.
The very beginning, God had commanded them to take their very best of their flocks and go sacrifice it as a penalty, as a payment for their sins, their wrongdoing.
And all this, it was never about the animals.
It was all pointing forward to Jesus, who would be the ultimate final sacrifice.
So we don't go out and do animal sacrifices because Jesus was the final one.
So they would have understood that term.
And they would have understood the strength that came behind it when Jesus painted himself as the sacrifice.
And that's what he was saying.
This bread that you tear apart means that I'm about to be torn apart.
This bread that you break is like my body, which is about to be broken.
This cup shows you that I'm about to bleed.
It's not a theory.
It's not something for us to argue about.
This is the cost.
This is the price for forgiveness.
Communion reminds us that grace is free, but it's never cheap.
Grace is free, but it's never cheap.
It came at a great cost.
Jesus' own life.
Jesus' own blood.
We thank God that in power he raised him back up from the dead.
But that does not minimize the suffering, the real pain and anguish and torment and death that Jesus experienced on that cross.
So when we pause in our annual calendar and we stop everything else we're doing and we stop to remember what Jesus did,
let us remember the words that we read in John chapter 10 and verse 18.
No one takes my life from me, Jesus said.
I lay it down of my own accord.
I lay it down willingly.
Not only was he a sacrifice, he was a willing sacrifice.
And so then when we read in Romans chapter 12 and verses 1 and 2 and he says,
now you go and be a willing sacrifice for me,
it's a whole lot easier for someone to tell you that when they've been a willing sacrifice for you.
You say, what have you ever done for me?
Why would you ask all of this?
Why would you ask me to dedicate my life to you when you've never done anything for me?
But Jesus can look at us and say, I did everything for you.
I gave everything for you.
I held nothing back.
Now with that picture of generosity, we've just spent the last six weeks studying how generous God was toward us
and how he wants us to be generous in return.
He can say, this is generosity displayed.
Me on the cross as the sacrifice, the willing sacrifice for you.
Those people might have thought they took my life for me,
but that was always the plan from the very beginning.
You can look back at the prophets and see their prediction of this son of God
who would willingly lay down his life and suffer just as he did on that cross.
So God's grace is given freely to us now today, but it was not cheap.
It cost Jesus everything.
And that's the second part.
Jesus didn't lose his life.
He gave it.
He offered it up willingly.
He wasn't the victim here.
He was the author of this story.
He wasn't the victim of sacrifice.
He was the author of it.
This was according to God's plan.
Out of his great love, he offered up his greatest treasure,
his greatest possession.
John 3, 16 calls it his only begotten son.
The greatest he had.
And he said, I give it to you.
From the very beginning, God's people knew that sin carried a price.
In the Garden of Eden, when God created everything, Adam and Eve sinned,
and an animal had to die to clothe their shame.
In Exodus, a lamb's blood marked the doors so that the death angel would pass over.
At the temple, sacrifice after sacrifice was offered as a substitute for sin.
And all of it was pointing to this when Jesus would give his life on a hill called Calvary,
a cross where the Lamb of God, the final sacrifice, would take away the sin of the world.
And here's the part that just staggers you, staggers me.
No one forced him.
If I knew that what Jesus endured was waiting around the corner,
I would have walked away.
Jesus even knelt in the garden the night before and said,
God, let this cup pass from me.
In his humanity, knowing what he was about to endure,
it almost seems as though he prayed,
is there any other way?
But then he came back to,
not my will, but yours be done.
This is the love that Jesus has for us.
This is the love that the Father has for us.
He would endure any amount of suffering.
He would endure any amount of pain.
So you and I could have a path to forgiveness.
So you and I could have a fresh start with Jesus.
So you and I could have eternal security for all time as the children of God.
But that was impossible.
The relationship was broken.
There was no way we could undo what we as humans had done and continue to do.
So there had to be a willing sacrifice.
And there was.
And that was the price that had to be paid.
But thank God there's also a promise there.
And that's number two.
The promise is what his blood really means.
In just a few minutes, we're going to take the cup and we're going to drink it.
And Jesus says, this symbolizes my blood.
This represents my blood that was poured out on the cross.
Back in Luke 22, look at the phrase that Jesus uses with the cup.
This cup is the new covenant in my blood.
We're going to talk about what that covenant means.
If you've been in church a while, you've heard that line probably a thousand times.
But to a Jewish listener, those words would explode like fireworks.
The covenants were important to them.
They knew exactly what a covenant was.
It was a part of their everyday life.
It was a part of their existence, their identity.
A covenant was more than a contract.
It was more than a handshake.
It was a binding, blood-sealed promise.
They lived by covenants.
The kind that could not be broken without blood being shed.
So from the very beginning, God has been a covenant-making God.
I wrote down some of the covenants.
And these are by no means all.
But some of the covenants in Genesis 12,
God promised Abraham, through your offspring,
all nations on the earth will be blessed.
In Exodus chapter 24,
God made a covenant with Israel on Mount Sinai.
And Moses sprinkled the blood of bulls on the altar and the people,
sealing this covenant that God made.
In 2 Samuel chapter 7,
God promised David that one of his descendants would reign forever.
Remember, in Jeremiah 31,
centuries before Jesus,
God promised a new covenant would come.
One that would forgive sin once and for all.
And one that would write God's law on our hearts,
not on tablets of stone.
Every covenant was God saying,
I will be faithful to my people.
But every covenant was sealed with blood.
Have you ever heard the saying,
blood is thicker than water?
Anybody ever heard that?
Blood is thicker than water.
Just real quick, what do you think it means?
Somebody yell it out.
Deep insight, Wade.
What are they trying to say?
Blood is thicker than water.
The bond of blood is stronger than the bond of water.
Okay.
What's the context they usually use it in?
Family.
There it is.
Family, right?
Well, blood is thicker than water.
All right.
Let's actually figure out what that meant.
Back in the 1100s,
a German poet named,
here we go.
We got some people with German roots in this.
Are y'all going to correct me so badly?
Heinrich der Glitcheser.
I don't know how to read that face.
I got the Shoffners over here looking at me like,
I don't know about that.
Gabe, that was the best I could do.
All right.
Heinrich der Glitcheser wrote that
the blood of the covenant
is thicker than the water of the womb.
Think about that.
The blood of the covenant
is thicker than the water of the womb.
That's where that saying came from.
The idea
was not that family
is thicker than any other bond.
The idea was that the bonds
of covenant friendship
or kinship,
the kind made by choice,
are stronger
than those naturally existing
because of family relationships.
You ever heard somebody say
you can't choose your family?
And look,
I'm not ragging on families here,
but I'm saying it's interesting
because we have actually taken this saying
to express the opposite
of what the author of this saying actually meant.
He was writing about brothers in arms
going out to fight
and he said,
the bond,
the blood
of kinship,
the blood of the covenant
made between soldiers
or those who have become like brothers
is actually stronger
than that bond that exists
just from being related.
Covenants
have always been seen
as the ultimate bond
and blood
is usually the price
of these promises.
On the night before Jesus died,
Jesus took the cup
and he said,
this is it.
This is the covenant
that Jeremiah was talking about.
This is the promise
to Abraham fulfilled.
This is the plan
from the Garden of Eden
now come to pass
in me.
Go to Hebrews chapter 8,
would you?
Hebrews chapter 8.
We're going to be there
for just a few more minutes
before we stop
to take the elements
of the Lord's Supper.
We're going to be in Hebrews chapter 8.
and then going into chapter 9.
You can follow along
in your Bible as I read.
Hebrews 8,
beginning in verse 6.
But now Jesus,
our high priest,
has been given a ministry
that is far superior
to the old priesthood.
The priests were the ones
who had to go
and make the sacrifices.
They had to be the representatives
of the people
before God
to say,
we're killing this animal
to make up for the sin
that we've done.
It could never
take away the sin.
It was just a placeholder
for the one
who would come
to actually pay
and atone
for the sin.
So he said,
Jesus
is far superior
to the old priests.
He is the one
who mediates for us
a far better covenant
with God
based on better promises.
All those covenants
from God,
the Israelite people
would hold on to those
like a lifeline.
Say,
this is what we have
from God.
This is the promise.
And Jesus is saying,
I'm coming
with better promises.
I'm coming
with a new
and better covenant.
And it's not just
for the Israelite people.
It's for anyone
who will come
to God
based on better promises.
Back in Hebrews 8,
if the first covenant
had been faultless,
there would have been
no need
for a second covenant
to replace it.
But it wasn't faultless,
was it?
It had faults.
When God speaks
of a new covenant,
it means he has made
the first one obsolete.
It is now out of date
and will soon disappear.
Kind of like technology.
Soon as you buy
a new phone,
it feels like
it's out of date,
obsolete,
and will soon disappear
and be replaced
by the newest,
latest,
and greatest version.
I'm going to have
to probably buy
a phone this year
because my old one
is starting to feel
very obsolete
and out of date.
It's what they do to you.
I've held on
as long as I can.
So God is replacing
the old covenant.
He said,
this is now out of date.
It's obsolete.
I'm going to do away
with it.
I'm going to give you
a new one
that's far better,
but I'm not going
to charge you
hundreds of dollars
for it.
You're not going
to have to get
a subscription plan.
It is a once for all.
It's a free gift.
Then get into chapter 9,
Hebrews chapter 9,
verse 1.
That first covenant
between God
and Israel
had regulations
for worship
and a place of worship
here on earth.
This is an illustration,
skipped out,
pointing to the present time,
verse 9.
For the gifts
and sacrifices
that the priests offer
are not able
to cleanse
the consciences
of the people
who bring them.
They couldn't do you
any real good.
The old system,
sinning,
having the priests
go and confess
your sin
and kill an animal
as a sacrifice,
none of that
could really do
anything good
for you.
It was just a symbol
of what Jesus
was going to do.
That old system
deals with only
food and drink
and various
cleansing ceremonies,
physical regulations
that were in effect
only until a better
system could be
established.
So Christ
has now
become the high priest
over all good things
that have come.
He has entered
that greater,
more perfect
tabernacle
in heaven
which was not
made by human hands
because anything
made by human hands
is not perfect.
Y'all know that,
right?
Anything you've made,
you might be very proud
of it,
but it's not perfect.
It could always be
improved.
But in heaven,
it truly is perfect.
It's not part
of this created world.
With his own blood,
what did Jesus do?
Not the blood of goats
and calves.
His own blood.
He entered
the most holy place.
And without taking
a lot of time
to get into
all the rules
and regulations
of the temple
back then,
when that priest
would go in
to atone
for the sin
of his people,
only he could
enter into
this most holy place.
They called it
the holy of holies.
Behind all these curtains
and there was this
one big thick curtain
that was sewn
so thick
no one could even
cut it.
It was so long
and so thick
and so heavy.
And when Jesus died,
when he gave up
the ghost,
his spirit left him
on the cross.
That temple,
God tore it
from top to bottom.
That covering.
What am I trying
to say?
That curtain.
There we go.
Thank you.
That curtain,
God tore it
from top to bottom
because the holy
of holies,
that most holy place
was now obsolete.
It held no special
significance anymore
because that system
was now gone.
No more sacrifices.
No more priests
going in on our behalf.
That's why you don't
need to come
and sit in a confessional
booth and tell me
the wrong things
you've done.
I don't want to hear it.
Trust me.
And I don't want
to tell you mine.
We tell it to Jesus.
You ever heard that song?
Tell it to Jesus.
There's no other
such a friend
or brother.
Tell it to Jesus
alone
because God made
the old way
obsolete.
Now,
man-made religions
will still try
to hold on
to things.
And they'll try
to hold on
to certain traditions
and say,
no,
this is how
we got to do it
because look back,
it's been done
for thousands of years.
Yeah,
until Jesus came.
And now Jesus
gave us a new way.
The temple
made with hands
no longer
has any significance.
Now,
it's the temple
made in heaven
waiting for you
and I
to get there.
and the
New Testament
actually teaches us
that our bodies
are now
like the temple
of God.
Kind of gives us
some pause
when we
go eat Tex-Mex
or whatever.
How well
are we treating
this temple
right now,
right?
But individually,
we are the temples
of God
walking around
because we are now
the holy place.
He has made us
holy.
We didn't make
ourselves holy.
When we repent
of our sins
and turn to Jesus,
He has made us
holy.
So let's get back
into Hebrews 9.
He has entered
that greater,
more perfect
tabernacle in heaven
which was not
made by human hands.
It's not part
of this created world.
With His blood,
He entered
the most holy place
once for all time
and secured
our redemption.
There's that word again,
that transactional word
that means buy back.
He secured
our redemption
forever.
Under the old system,
the blood of goats
and bulls
and the ashes
of a heifer
could cleanse
people's bodies
from ceremonial impurity.
It was never real.
It was always ceremonial.
It did nothing
with the heart.
It was just the bodies.
Just think
how much more.
The writer of Hebrews
says,
the blood of Christ
will purify
our conscience
from sinful deeds
so that we can
worship
the living God.
God can make you
clean
on the
inside.
Those sacrifices
could never do that.
And nothing
you can do
can clean
your inside.
You can take
all the showers.
You can use
all the products.
you can try
to get your mind
into a better
state.
Try to forget
the wrongs you've done.
Try to move on.
Try to leave the past
in the past.
You can do all that
but you cannot
make your
inner self
clean.
You can't
clean your heart.
You can't
clean your soul.
You can't
clean your memory.
only God
can really
cleanse
the real
you.
You can
clean your
shell
but not
you.
Just think
how much
more
the blood
of Christ
can and
will
purify
our
consciences
from sinful
deeds
so then we
can really
worship.
For by the
power of the
eternal spirit
Christ
offered himself
to God
as a perfect
sacrifice
for our sins.
That is why
he is the one
who mediates
a new covenant
between God
and people
so that all
who are called
can receive
the eternal
inheritance
that God
has promised
us.
Told you there
was better
promises coming.
The eternal
inheritance
that will last
forever
because of
Jesus and
what he did.
For Christ
died to set
them free
from the penalty
of the sins
they had committed
under that
first covenant.
So let's look
at these old
and new covenants.
The old
covenant
the first
covenant
was the
righteousness
of the law
and do you
know what
it accomplished?
Condemnation.
It condemned
you over
and over
again and
if you still
live by the
law open
up the
old testament
read the
law you
and I
break it
all the
time.
We break
the law
continually.
So the
old covenant
was there
to show us
just how
bad we
really are.
Here's
God's
standard you
can't reach
it.
You can't
meet it.
You might
feel good
about yourself
because you
feel like
you're meeting
it better
than that
guy is
or better
than that
girl is
but the
truth is
none of us
are meeting
God's
standard.
We continually
break the
law.
So the
new covenant
came.
Jesus brought
the second
covenant
which is the
righteousness
of Christ
and that
brings us
reconciliation.
We can be
reconciled.
things made
right only
by Jesus.
The old
covenant
showed us
how far
apart God
and us
are.
The new
covenant
shows us
how that
distance
can be
overcome,
can be
brought
together
because of
what Jesus
did.
So the
old covenant
was concerned
with a clean
outside,
clean hands,
clean rituals,
clean appearances,
clean habits.
The new
covenant is
the righteousness
of Christ
concerned with
a clean
inside,
a forgiven
heart,
a transformed
spirit,
a life made
new from
the inside
out.
The cross
was not
God changing
his plan,
it was God
completing
his plan.
This was
always the
plan.
He didn't
see how
badly we were
keeping the
law and say
okay I gotta
pivot and I gotta
figure something
else out here.
Jesus why don't
you go and
make all this
right?
It was the
plan from the
beginning to
show us how
we needed
him.
You can't get
somebody saved
until they
realize they're
lost.
You and I
could not turn
to Jesus until
we realized we
needed to be
forgiven.
Until we
realized we're
not good enough,
we're not strong
enough, we need
him.
the blood of
bulls and
goats could
only cover
sin but the
blood of
Jesus can
cancel it.
And it
has.
He's canceled
mine.
He's canceled
many of
yours.
And if you're
here today and
you don't have
that kind of
relationship with
Jesus, please
don't walk out of
here today without
starting it.
God, this is
the moment, this
is the day of
salvation for
you.
Now is the
time for you to
turn from sin and
say, I turn to
Jesus.
God help me.
I can't do it on
my own.
Colossians chapter
two and verse
13 talks about
that.
When you were
dead in your
sins and the
uncircumcision of
your flesh, God
made you alive with
Christ.
We're not going to
get into the whole
circumcision part.
That was part of the
rituals to make you
clean.
But it was a
practice that of
course now is
practiced today with
babies born in the
hospital.
But when you were
dead in your sin and
all these rituals that
you couldn't keep up
with, God made you
alive with Christ.
He forgave us all of
our sins having
canceled the charge of
our legal indebtedness
which stood against
us.
It condemned us.
The law always
condemns you.
But then he's taken
it away and he nailed
it to his cross.
What an awesome
picture of
how Jesus treated
this.
How he bought us
our salvation.
What he has to do
with the law now.
He said I take it and
I mail it to the
cross.
This is now where it
hangs.
It has no rule over
you anymore.
Now I'm to be the
sole ruler over you
and I want that to be
a relationship.
That's the difference
the cross makes.
every drop of blood
that fell at the cross
of Jesus is God
saying I keep my
promises even to the
death.
Every drop of blood
is God's promise to
you.
I paid for your sin.
So in conclusion
that's what this
moment is about.
It's a price that
was paid
and it's a promise
that was kept.
So when we hold
the bread this morning
and we hold the cup
don't let it become
a routine.
Or if it has become
a routine for you
repent of that
and say no
I'm going to think
about this
how God wants me
to think about it.
We're doing it for
him.
And so it's a
reminder.
This is what it
costs.
It's a testimony.
This is what he
promised.
And it's an anchor.
This is how much
we are loved.
I'm going to ask
the men to come
forward.
We have some of
our deacons
to serve us
with the Lord's
supper this morning.
As they come
forward
I want to remind
you that this
moment is not
about what we
bring to God.
It's about what
he brought to
us.
A promise kept.
A price paid.
So would you
keep that in your
mind as we bow
together in just a
moment and we
receive these
elements.
And let me give
a little bit of
instruction here.
For those of you
who are guests
with us this
morning.
If you know in
your heart that
you're a child of
God and there's
been a moment of
salvation for you
when you turn to
Jesus said please
forgive me of my
sin.
Make me your
child.
Then we invite you
to join us with
this time of
communion Lord's
supper.
You'll receive the
elements together.
Would you wait and
hold on to those and
be in an attitude of
prayer until the
time comes for us to
all take them
together.
We'll do that
twice.
We'll have a prayer
before each one.
But what this is
about is a
reminder of the
price that was
paid.
So we look at
that bread and we
think of Jesus'
body and the
suffering that he
endured as our
sacrifice.
We look at that
cup and we think
of the blood that
is the new covenant
that we get to be a
part of.
not just with the
people of Israel
with all of us who
will accept the
invitation that God
extends.
So let's keep our
minds locked in there
when we have that
bread and we have
that juice.
What do these
represent?
Would you bow with
me in prayer?
God at this moment
we ask for our
hearts to be quieted
our minds to be
cleared of all the
distractions.
sins.
That every man,
woman, and child in
this room would know
you as their savior,
know you as their
friend, know you as
their father, know you
as the forgiver of
their sins, the
sacrifice for their
sins.
God you didn't just
come to give us a
better life on this
earth.
You came as a very
real, very needed
sacrifice.
Let us not forget
that.
Let us in the next
few moments consider
that.
Speak to us.
Speak to our hearts.
Change us from the
inside out.
It's in Jesus' name
we pray.
Amen.
All right, the deacons
are going to distribute
the elements.
Music's going to play
in the background.
And as you receive
them, just sit quietly
in prayer and then
I'll read a scripture
and we'll pray and
we'll take the
elements together.
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