Jesus is Looking for YOU

Summary

The world is a little chaotic. But no matter what's happening or who you are, Jesus is looking for you. 

Transcript

Well, good morning one more time. My name is Jeremy, if we've never met or you forget. And I got to preach two weeks ago, and I don't often get to preach so soon again here because we have so many gifted preachers. But for whatever reason, I got lucky enough to be chosen again through some circumstances. And we say at the beginning, when we read the opening liturgy, we don't believe that it's by accident you are here with us today. And so we say that, and we believe that, and I was listening to it this morning as it was read, and I just have to, I just think it's no accident that I got chosen to preach today, for better or worse. You know, I don't, we'll find out at the end of this.

Because this week has really been, this week's been very difficult for me to process through, and to go through, and to just be faithful. And so this scripture from Jeremiah really captured my attention this week from chapter four, verse 22. And this is what is being spoken through the prophet. My people are fools, they do not know me. They are senseless children. They have no understanding. They are skilled in doing evil.

They know not how to do good. And that was, that was a lot. I mean, is that to me right now? Because I really am, like, am I one of these people? Because these are God's people he's speaking to. God is speaking to Israel, the chosen people, the people that are supposed to be going around the world and showing how good God is. And here is God saying, they don't know what they're doing.

They're really, really good at doing evil things, but they're really, really bad at doing righteous things. And so that, you know, this passage stuck out because it's weak. So I'm gonna, I sat down and I was writing through all the things that happened this week. So you're gonna have to bear with me while I recap them for you, in case you don't know everything that happened. But it's important because it sets the tone for the whole point of this method, which is God is looking for us. God cares who we are, who is lost, who is near, and God takes accountability for that. So when we exist in the world that is crazy and broken, where things like a major, very divisive political personality was shot down in front of a bunch of college students and his family.

And then we have, at the same time that's happening, like the same time across the country in Colorado is a school shooting where two kids are injured and the gunman turns the gun on himself and takes his own life. And then here in Dallas, we have, I mean, a brutal beheading in broad daylight. And then 40 Palestinians were killed and over 60 were injured on Tuesday when they were struck with the bombs they were living at in a tent city because they were displaced from where they live. We have a lot of countries that are just deciding now to take a stand and put their troops at the Eastern front of Europe because the tensions are there escalating and bombings are happening in new places. We're posturing for war. We have an ICE agent was killed by an immigrant. Sorry, an immigrant was killed by an ICE agent because the immigrant tried to escape when he was being pulled over and struck the ICE agent.

And now we have another life gone and dead. And on top of all of that, on top of all of that, it is the anniversary of 9-11, one of the largest terrorist attacks in our country. That's all happening in the last seven days in the world. And now it's crazy because you could argue around, you could say, okay, this happened over here and this happened over here. These are kind of isolated incidences. But if you put them all together, there's a very clear picture that the world we exist in today is chaotic, it is broken, it is sometimes hopeless. And so what do we do?

I sit there and I think, what do I do? How do I approach this? How do I talk about this? And how do I get myself in trouble? How do I get myself out of trouble? Stuff I put on line and how do I advocate for people? And how do I speak wisely about this?

And sometimes I do it really wrong. Sometimes I think I do it really right. But then other times I just don't know what else to do. And so I just pray. We talked about this whole thing this year, daily prayer and daily good deeds, right? That's what we're gonna do, daily prayer and daily good deeds. And I mean, even Sharon and I were talking this morning about a situation that we said, sometimes we just don't even know what to do except pray.

That's all you can do is pray. Because I have no control over what is happening on the Eastern front of Europe. I don't have control of that. And so I say little prayers, I say daily prayers, sometimes I don't even know the words to say. And it's all made worse, of course, by the internet and social media because everybody can be everywhere and everybody can have opinion and everybody can make that opinion known. And then people can argue against that and all kinds of crazy stuff and stuff happens so fast. And we're on a witch hunt to find who the wrong person is that we can blame for something.

And then it changes and then we make excuses for that. And we keep going and it just, it's a cycle over and over again. We are so worried about not being the bad guy that we will villainize other people to protect ourselves. And so I don't know what to do. So I have these books that I bought.

It's called Every Moment Holy. It's a series of three books right now. It's like this, they have a bigger version of it, but this is literally a prayer book. All three of them are a prayer book for every moment holy. Like there's one that's before you make coffee, say a prayer, before you tune your instrument, there's a prayer. Before you talk to your wife in the morning, say a prayer for gardening, for the planting of flowers, for beginning a book, for when you turn on your computer, every single moment is holy. That's the whole premise of this book.

And so there's one in here that I took comfort in and I'm gonna read it because it's, this is a liturgy for those flooded by too much information. That is the name of this prayer. So I'm gonna read this to you if you'll allow me to hear this, because this brought me sanity, I guess, you know, because I say just pray and it is good sometimes to not know what to say when you pray. Sometimes it's good just to sit there and not know what to say. But sometimes it is helpful to have words. And so here are the words from this liturgy for those who are flooded by too much information. In a world so wired and interconnected, our anxious hearts are pummeled by an endless barrage of troubling news.

We are daily aware of more grief, oh Lord, than we can rightly consider of more suffering and scandal than we can respond to. of more hostility, hatred, horror, and injustice that we can engage with compassion. But you, oh Jesus, are not disquieted by such news of cruelty and terror and war. You are neither anxious nor overwhelmed. You carried the full weight of the suffering of a broken world when you hung upon the cross, and you carry it still. When the cacophony of universal distress unsettles us, remind us that we are but small and finite creatures, never designed to carry the vast abstractions of great burdens. for our arms are too short, and our strength is too small.

Justice and mercy, healing and redemption are your great labors. And yes, it is your good pleasure to accomplish such works through your people, but you have never asked any one of us to undertake more than your grace will enable us to fulfill. Guard us then from shutting down our empathy or walling off our hearts because of the glut of unactionable misery that floods our awareness. You have many children in many places around this globe. Move each one of our hearts to compassionately respond to those needs that intersect our actual lives. that in all places, your body might be actively addressing the pain and brokenness of this world, each of us liberated and empowered by your spirit to fulfill the small part of your redemptive work assigned to us. Give us discernment in the face of troubling news reports.

Give us discernment to know when to pray, when to speak out, when to act, and when to simply shut off our screens and our devices and to sit quietly in your presence, casting the burdens of this world upon the strong shoulders of the one who alone is able to bear them up. Amen. So that is, I mean, maybe written directly to me, I think, that's what I say. I'm gonna write this guy a letter on social media, which he shouldn't be on, but I'm gonna do it anyways, and send him a letter and say, thank you for writing that for me because daily prayer, liturgy, just as an aside, the reason we do liturgy every week the same way, and the reason that we follow the lectionary most of the time, and the reason that we write down our prayers here is not because we don't know what to say and we don't trust ourselves in the moment or anything, but it's because even when we are not feeling good or we're feeling upset or anxious or worried or angry, we have the same words to fall back on because they are a constant and they are assured and they're the same and we're supported by the body of believers to live into that moment. So when I'm feeling bad, I can say the words or hear the words said around me. If I'm feeling good, I can support the people next to me, and it doesn't change because God never changes. And so we don't leave it to the whimsy of our emotions and our feelings, because those are really good to have because God has given us emotions and feelings, but they are not what we always put our trust in or should put our trust and our hope in.

And so we're gonna read today's gospel passage from the lectionary, which is from Luke. We've been in Luke through this whole time. And all these events happening and me having to preach or getting to preach, I should say me getting to preach and praying and processing all this, we're in this series of Luke, this part of Luke where we talk about like radical hospitality and loving people and learning to not put other things or other people above Jesus, even to the point of including our family in that, to not put laws and processes above people. And so now we get to this part where Jesus is talking about two parables, the parable of the lost sheep and the parable of the lost coin. So I'm gonna read Luke 15, verses one through 10. It'll be up on the screen, but you can turn there if you would like. Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus, but the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, this man welcomes sinners and eats with them.

Then Jesus told them this parable, suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. doesn't he leave the 99 in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, rejoice with me, I have found my lost sheep. I will tell you that in the same way, there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who do not need to repent. Or suppose a woman has 10 silver coins and loses one. Doesn't she light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it?

And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, rejoice with me, I have found my lost coin. In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents. Two stories, two ideas of things being lost. When it is found and brought back to where it's supposed to be, there is celebration, and not just by the person who finds it, but an invitation of the others around them, friends and family to celebrate as well, just as the angels rejoice and celebrate in heaven. So have you ever lost, have you ever lost something that you would not and could not, and maybe still cannot rest because you can't find it? I have a particular gift to be able to put the same, put something in the same place every day until I don't. And where that place that I don't put it is a mystery to everybody involved.

My wife, she's wonderful. She, I have, okay, so I have a lot of my daily carry. I have a wallet, I have my car keys, and separate from that, I have my church keys. And in each of those devices and another one for a bag, I have a tile device because it's not without precedent or not just happened one time that I have locked my keys in this church and left and forgot that I had locked my keys in this church and then could not go home until I called somebody or found somebody to let me in. Or even this morning, I put my keys, not in the hook where I hang it every single day. I put my keys on top of the water machine. Why? I don't know, but I do remember last night saying, I shouldn't put that there.

I'm not gonna be able to find that. And then when I went to leave this morning, I could not find them. And so I played the little sound of my tile machine, and there they were the whole time. I cannot rest and will not rest or ever be settled if I lose something. Another story, so in high school, I don't know how common it is. Nowadays, or it was, I think, more common prior to my generation, you would change class rings, right? So you went, you dated somebody, you had a class ring, you would give them your ring, they would give you your ring.

And obviously my hands are big and the people, the girl I dated, her fingers were not very big. So I had to put her ring on my finger, whatever, my pinky finger, but I lost it. You know, the worst thing you could do is lose somebody's class ring, especially when you break up and you can't find the ring and you have to give it back to her that she spent hundreds of dollars on. And I could not find it for the life of me. I searched probably my house, I'm not kidding, probably a hundred times. And I just would walk around once a day. It's the point I'd be like, okay, I'm going to walk here, look, look.

And it wasn't until a year later, we'd graduated, I'd gone to basic training, I had gone, she'd gone to college. I came home, I had a full-time job. I pulled open this bag that I carry, my book bag, a satchel, and there was a pocket that I don't know why I had never checked, just an outside pocket. And I opened it up, look, there is the ring. So then, then I have to call, call her and say, hey, I found your ring. Very awkward to do because, you know, but I could not, I couldn't rest. I have a bracelet that I lost that I think fell off.

It was a clasp and it had fallen off. And to this, like, I walk through my yard when I'm leaving the house and I look in the grass every day because I'm looking for a bracelet that I'm pretty sure is not going to be there, but I just don't know where it's at. And I cannot rest until I find it. These, like I said, I have this ability, you know, I have an ability to lose things. And I will literally say out loud, if I lose something, I will say out loud to, I guess, a prayer that, well, I guess I will be thinking about that for the rest of my life. Like it is, I will never rest until I find the thing. So

what I find interesting about this passage is this idea of something being lost and chasing after it, right?

So it's a pretty straightforward on the surface. Sheep is lost and the shepherd goes in and find it. But I think what's interesting is how it starts. You know, in this, two weeks ago, I got to preach about the great banquet, the parable. You know, Jesus gets invited to the Pharisee's house and he goes there and he sees everybody clamoring for the top spot. And so he tells a story about being, putting others above yourself. Then he tells the person who's hosting the banquet to invite people who wouldn't normally get invited to people, you know, extend your hospitality.

And then he goes on and tell another story about how it compares, you know, essentially compares Israel, God's people to having the opportunity already. But they've already made a bunch of excuses why they won't come to the great banquet that they have been invited to. And so now we get to this story and we see who the tax collectors, I'm sorry, the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttering about the company that Jesus is keeping, right? They're upset that this man would dare, this Jewish man, Rabbi, you know, of course we have the ability. I always have to remind myself and others that we have the luxury of knowing who Jesus is now. So we know how kind of crazy this is. You know, in the moment, of course, here's a Jewish man, a teacher, somebody who's supposed to be teaching the law, and they do not like anything that he's talking about or teaching or the company that he keeps because eating with people who are, for a quick way to say it, unclean and not holy and sanctified and set aside is a very bad thing for you to do because then you yourself become unclean, unsanctified, unholy to be in the temple, to be in the presence of God.

But Jesus says he doesn't care, obviously, because that's not what God's people are supposed to be doing. And he hears them muttering, they're so mad that this man, this man welcomes sinners and he eats with them.

He welcomes them? How radical could that be, that he would invite people who aren't in the know to eat with them? And so he starts out, he says, as he often does, he teaches in a parable, he teaches a story, and he asks them a rhetorical question at the beginning. You know, he says, you have 100 sheep, one of them is gone. Wouldn't you go get that last sheep? And mostly everybody is going to be like, yeah, of course. Of course, we're going to get this lost sheep because that's money.

That is our livelihood. That is our property. Of course, I'm going to go find that lost. It's a rhetorical question. And so this journey to find the lost animal is done by the one who desires it the most and who is ultimately the most responsible for this animal, the shepherd. The shepherd is the one who's responsible for the animal. The shepherd is the one who cares the most about the animal because it's his job.

It's his, I mean, he's spending his life living around these sheep. You know, it's like a calling or placement. So it's not just like an animal got out and okay, I don't have to worry about that. It's like his things. You know how crazy, you know how crazy is not the right word, how passionately people feel about their animals today, right? They love their animals and imagine that with 100 of them and you lose one. Okay, that's kind of what we're looking at here.

And so he leaves the shepherd, he leaves the sheep, the 99 sheep. He leaves them to go find the sheep. He doesn't leave them by themselves. He leaves them in the translation here, I think is the open.

Sorry, he open country is what it says. Other translations say the desert. He leaves them in the open country in the desert. And the desert just means nobody's there. It's not like the desert we think of today of sand or Antarctica desert. It is just an open field. So there's an open field where sheep would love to be anyways, because what are they going to do?

He's going to walk around, run into each other and eat. That's it, okay. So he leaves them in the care of these under shepherds. And he goes to where the real danger is. He goes to wherever this lost sheep is in the rocks, in where the wild animals are, where the, you know, this 99 are not really in danger because they can see all around them. The desert is an open place. So there's no danger there.

But if there is, they're going to be able to see it from a long ways away and deal with it. The shepherd's leaving by himself to go find this lost sheep that has no idea the situations he is getting into because he cares about this missing sheep. And then great success. He finds it and he puts it on his shoulder in a loving way, carries it. And he puts it on, not begrudgingly. He doesn't put it on his shoulder dutifully or because he has to, or because this dumb sheep is not going to walk back and he doesn't want to waste his time. He puts it on his shoulders joyfully.

Joyfully, he comes back and he calls for a celebration and says, look what I have found, what was lost. What was lost is now found. Come and celebrate with me. And so who do you identify with in this story? The shepherd, the one who goes out and gets people. Are you the under shepherd who kind of cares for the flock when the shepherd is gone? Are you the 99 that is just comfortable in the space?

Are you the one that has been lost and has now found? And, you know, if you, I would guess, I'm confident that most of us have felt like the one that has been lost for a while, that has been come back and she confessed Jesus as Lord, as your savior, as the shepherd, then you know what it feels like to be found, put on his shoulder and brought back. And we bring this back into the family of God. We celebrate that through baptism and we have a party and celebrate that. It's very much like what is happening here. But if you're a believer, you're now in the 99. That's not a bad thing to be part of the 99 is good.

It means you are not the dumb sheep that ran off. Right. You are part of the 99. You're good. You get to live in the open field with unlimited food and the comfort of your friends and all that. They're safe.

They're accounted for. They're cared for. They are known. And they probably aren't thinking much about the one. But the person who's responsible is thinking about the one. Jesus is thinking about the one. And so I think it's unfortunate that at some point we start to view the lost sheep as a danger to us.

Instead of celebrating and rejoicing that we are made whole again. What I mean by that is. So, OK, sheep, I'm going to call a sheep now that the sheep sometimes get jealous. That the shepherd, the one who cares about every single person and every single creation in the universe that he was a part of making. Sometimes we get jealous that he actually goes out and tries to find them instead of staying with us to make us feel safe. And to make us feel like we're the most important thing in the world. And then we get mad because he has to go out there.

So we think that that lost sheep is pulling the shepherd away from us and he can't take care of himself. And so now the danger isn't the danger of the lost sheep. It's the danger that the sheep is going to interfere with our understanding and our safety and our comfort. It's now we have the lost coin. Kind of the same idea. Something is lost. It is now found.

Ten silver coins that we're talking about, which is a silver coin in this instance, as I was reading, is about one day's worth of wages. So in a typical nine to five corporate job, boring job here, ten silver coins would be a paycheck. And so essentially saying that they lost one day of their paycheck. And that's not that's not fun. That's not cool. Times, especially now, are hard to lose a whole day of work would be devastating. And this lady feels the same way.

She lights as soon as she finds out that it's gone. She lights the can, lights the lamp and goes to find this lost coin. And so I was reading this Wesleyan biblical commentary. And this is what they say about this little passage here. In the preceding parable, so the parable that came before the shepherd went to look for his strayed sheep in the wilderness. But in the house, this piece of money is lost. And in the house before it is sought and found.

So it's it didn't wander away. It is lost. It's lost where it already was. This reminds us of the fact that our children may be lost right in our homes. Still participating in family worship, perhaps, but without Christ in their hearts. Also, people may be lost right in our very churches, attending Sunday school and regular services, but unsaved. The challenge to every Christian is to be concerned about such persons and to seek definitely the salvation of their souls.

So now this is turning away from going out into the world to then now taking care of what is already in our possession. And so I do want to take a moment aside and. To talk about this is, I think, even more relevant than it ever has been. And I. This is coming in the realm of technology. So the Internet is a very relatively new thing. Being online is a new thing.

And I remember getting Internet in our house for the very first time. I remember getting on. We had all the sounds and everything.

Then we got DSL. We were really cool. So we could have faster than that. We got into chat rooms and we pretended who you are in chat rooms. You made up all kinds of online personalities. Nothing was real, but everything was really cool and ultra real on the Internet. And our parents never had any idea what we were doing on the Internet.

So if you're kind of my age, you know this, like, you know, that if you had the Internet and access to the Internet, your parents had no clue. What was going on out there? And now everybody has the Internet. We've come to a point that everybody has access to this information, this technology, this this cohesion, this these communities. We're almost at another point, quite honestly, that we don't know what other people are doing on the Internet. And what I mean by that is that people are becoming. They're being radicalized in many different ways online.

Because it's easy to do in secret and imply you could be in the very house where your parents love you, care for you, provide you all the good stuff you need are not abusive. We are so abusive. Must be a trust family home. No, even a good family home. You can be online and you can become radicalized by the communities that are trying to pull you. This is not a new thing, right? This is not a new thing that the we talk about spiritual warfare.

The devil, Satan is trying to separate us from God. That's not a new thing at all. To separate us from a community of believers, the community of truth, to pull us into a direction that is radicalized in this way or that way or this way. And we become hateful in our hearts and we lose empathy at a true level in our souls. But on the surface, we look really good and we play the part and we say, oh, yeah, I love everybody. OK, but in your heart, you know. You know, that's not true.

God knows it's not true. I guess you don't know, but God knows it's true. And so it is very easy for the Internet culture, chronically online people to get pulled into these extremist views. And I'm not saying that to like for everybody to go home, especially if you have younger kids to go home and like crack down. And you should be super aware of what's happening in your kid's life and what's happening in grandkids life or nieces and nephews life on the Internet. There's some crazy stuff out there and it will so fast and so quickly pull you away from God's truth into a truth that uses God to warp your reality in the world. And that is against one of the Ten Commandments, you know, don't take the Lord's name in vain.

No other God before me last week. We talked about don't put the process of the rules above people. And so it is very easy to go online in our own homes, in the church, and be radicalized to hate other people because we're afraid that Jesus is being pulled away from what we believe Jesus needs to be and who Jesus should be for me to go talking to the lost and the broken and the sinners of the world. Well, what? So in creation, what is what and who is separated from God? Set apart or pulled apart from God, what and who is separated from God is important to God. Because God tells the story, he's going to chase after you and wants you to be back to be a part of the family.

For God so loved the world. He so loved the world, not just the good people in the world, not just the righteous people in the world, not the holy people in the world, but God so loved the world that he gave his only son so that everyone who believes in him may not perish, but may have eternal life. My very favorite verse, I think in the Bible, maybe my very favorite verse is 17. Says, Indeed, God did not send the son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

I don't know why. We get so scared that Jesus is going to be taken away from us as believers when the very call that God has given to us is to go out into the scary places to take Jesus out there, to love God with all your heart, to love your neighbors yourself, which who's your neighbor? Everybody, and then to go to the ends of the earth, teaching about that love and then inviting people into the family so that when they are lost and they are found and brought back to the 99 that we get to celebrate and cheer with them and to to say that God is more complete. God's creation is more complete.

Then it was. While you were a sinner. We need to stop using the gift of grace bestowed upon our own lives to keep other people away from God. Paul said this in our other reading from today in first Timothy. He says. Here's a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the worst.

But for that very reason, I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life. God came and offered himself as a sacrifice that we could be brought back into the family and so that we can continue on to do the same thing. And when the world blows up and is crazy and we exist in crazy times and everybody's looking for a motive for this thing or that thing, we separate people. We try to push people into camps or we we push people into this direction because we don't like those people. So we're going to associate them with that powder. You are using the grace bestowed upon you. To separate others from the kingdom of God, because you think that you are more important than the work of the shepherd.

And so Jesus is looking for you, whether you are far away and you are the lost little sheep out in the world, not knowing what happened or being separated from God and not seeing the crowd. Jesus is looking for you. If you are in the church, if you are in the family, Jesus is looking for you. Jesus knows you.

Jesus cares for you. And Jesus accounts for each of you.

So I hope that we can do the same in the sphere of influence that we have, that we can account for people and care for people and love for people and invite people to come into the family so that we can celebrate again and again and again and again that people have come to know who Jesus is. The next thing we're going to do after we say our closing prayer here is we're going to participate in the table, the Lord's Supper. And when I, after I get done with the instructions, if you have kids back in the back, you're invited to go invite them to come to the table along with you so they can participate in communion to you. Communion with you so they can see what it means to be a part of the family of God and to accept it as well. But this table is the great equalizer. You know, we've been really on it. This is not my table to invite you to Jonathan's journeys, Nazarene's, Protestants, Christianity's table.

It's not this is Jesus's table that he is inviting you to, to come, to be a part of the family and to receive the grace that has been given to you through the breaking of his body, through the shedding of his blood so that we can be lost and we can be found. And so this table, you can have the biggest disagreement with somebody in the world. You should try to rectify that before you come to the table. And they could be offered the same invitation as you, the most righteous person in the world, in your own world. Maybe you're also invited to this table. It's the great equalizer. It's a beautiful thing because Jesus on the night he was betrayed, he took bread and he broke it with the people around him that were going to betray him and going to turn him in or already betrayed him or going to run away and disown him.

And he broke and said, this is my body broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me. And after supper and everybody had had to fill, he took the cup and he said, this is my blood shed for you. Shed for your sins, for the sins of the world, for my sins, for your sins and for the sins of the world. Do this in remembrance of me. So Paul goes on to write that Paul, the chief of sinners, who gives us this liturgy, he says, this was passed down to me. And so whenever you do this, you proclaim the Lord's death until he returns again.

This is an ongoing invitation. Always. We can very easily find ourselves as a part of the uncaring Pharisee and lawgivers. Grumbling that Jesus is talking to the wrong people. But we come to the table as the chief of sinners. So we're gonna say a prayer that's gonna be up, a confession, if you will join me. The prayer is up here.

Let's say this together. Almighty God, our heavenly father, we have sinned against you and our neighbor through our own fault, in thought, in word, and deed, and what we have done and what we have left undone. For the sake of your son, our Lord Jesus Christ, forgive us all our offenses, and grant that we may serve you in the newness of life. To the glory of your name, amen. And so we proclaim the mystery that is God. And Timothy says, can't see him, invisible God, but we know God is very real. And so this mystery, sometimes we proclaim this mystery of faith that Christ has died, Christ is risen, and Christ will come again.

When you come forward to take communion, this side will have a plate of bread. You can take it and dip it into the juice and partake in the elements together. If you would like to not do that way, we have prepackaged elements over here. You rip the top off, there's a wafer. That's the bottom part off, and there's the juice. You can partake in communion that way. And I'm going to invite you first to go get your kids if you have them, if you want them to take communion, but then also before you come to the table, really ask God for forgiveness again that we are not a part of the grumbling people of God, but a people that invites everyone, no matter who they are, where they're from.

Let's partake in the Lord's Supper.