Good to see you this morning. I think flu season is upon us. Sickness of a variety of kind is all around. I know some people out sick and some people out who are traveling. So I’m praying for them as they are not with us. But we’ll be in Matthew this morning. I want to turn our attention to the Beatitudes again. Again, Matthew chapter 5 verse 6. Matthew chapter 5 verse 6.
And here are the words of Jesus.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
That’s what Jesus said. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they shall be satisfied.
I think like most people, the new year, I would like to lose a few pounds. I’m trying to do it. It’s difficult.
I’ve never faced the problem in my life, though, of I wonder if I’m going to have food. Generally, the problem is there’s too much food available. That seems, I guess, to be a Western problem for us. Because if you look around the world, that’s not true for everyone. Have you been keeping up with what’s going on? The country of Venezuela, their country has and is imploding. And there, you know, it’s not hard to read about, to see pictures on the Internet of parents of children that don’t know where their next meal is coming from. And it’s very likely not coming. I was reading a news story this past week, and you see mothers with coffins, you know, this big, because their kids are just dying because there’s nothing to eat. So I’ve never experienced that. I’ve not been able to promise my child that they won’t have another meal. I’m not saying I’m above that. I’m not saying the Lord never put me through that. But I’ve never known that. And it reminds me, though, of what Jesus is talking about this morning in His good provision when He says, In His kingdom, the one who hungers and thirsts shall be, will be satisfied. So it’s very much so a promise that Jesus makes us. But the thing that we ought to be wise to is what are we hungry and thirsty for?
I think Jesus is turning our attention not just to food, though the body is important in God’s eternal kingdom. I imagine we will feast. Jesus ascended in a physical body, and so we will be in perfect body someday, and we will feast. But Jesus is talking about something far more important. And Jesus is pushing us to see, are we hungry and thirsty for the right things? Because if we are, He promises, He promises satisfaction.
And so He says, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst. So the fourth beatitude we consider again in the kingdom, kingdom life, kingdom mentality. Remember, it’s a different economy than ours. It’s upside down. It’s virtues. It’s priorities. They run counter to man’s. And He says, Blessed, happy, fortunate is the one who hungers and thirsts. But by way of review, let’s look at the past three. First, we saw Jesus say,
adjective, blessed is the poor in spirit. So what kind of spirit is blessed? The one that’s poor. The second one was a verb. The person that’s a good disciple of Jesus mourns. I’m mourning.
The person thirdly, who is the disciple, adjective again, you are a meek person. And then here fourth, we get verbs again. Jesus says, blessed is the one who hungers and thirsts. So it’s not that the adjective, adjectives aren’t relevant or that the person who is meek or is poor in spirit won’t do things in their life that won’t accord with that kind of holy disposition we’ve been talking about in the Beatitudes, the Sermon on the Mount. But I think it is a grace to us that Jesus is very plain about these verbs. Like a dead giveaway. Hey, if you are a disciple, here’s what you should be doing on a normal basis. You should be mourning sin. Are you mourning sin? And we get the verb again. Hey, on a normal basis, if you’re a disciple, here’s what you should be doing. You should be hungering. You should be thirsting. That’s what you should be doing. So they’re dead giveaways about kingdom priorities, what we’re doing with our life now. And so Jesus says it’s an action of the disciple to hunger and thirst. But Jesus isn’t talking about literal food and water here. That’s a ridiculous concept. Righteousness isn’t a substance I can eat and be satisfied. It’s not a substance I can drink for my dehydration. It’s by way of metaphor. Like, oh, I’m dying. I’m dying to go on vacation. Well, of course, you’re not dying to go on vacation. You’d really like to go on vacation. So what Jesus is doing, He’s using hunger and thirst to kind of personify and talk about what should be, should be, a very intense desire for. What should be a longing that doesn’t compare with any other longing you have. That’s the kind of hunger, thirst, desire. But I do think it’s important to consider why did Jesus choose to use that metaphor? He could have used a lot of different ones to describe that desire. But He uses hunger and thirst, I think, purposefully. You think about hungering and thirsting. It’s common to the human experience. Perhaps a poorer person knows what it’s like to hunger and thirst more than a wealthy person. But all the same, we’ve all been hungry. You’ve missed a meal. You get weak. You get a headache. You can’t function. You’re outside on a hot day. And you’re so thirsty. Like, there’s just one thing that I need food or I need water. So Jesus is using something that we understand and something that’s common to life for us. So He’s saying this is the kind of desire you should have. So I think Jesus is saying we should hunger and thirst for righteousness. It draws out these two things. One, we have to remember we cannot sustain ourselves. We’re not self-sustaining creatures physically or spiritually. He’s not created us that way. And we’re so frail, we need food and water daily, don’t we? It’s not something that I can go a week or two. Oh, I haven’t eaten in a month. I need to eat something. It doesn’t work that way. So that’s the kind of degree of desire Jesus is talking about, not with food and drink, but with righteousness. And what is righteousness? We defined it several months ago. But I want to bring back up the definition we use. This comes from Baker’s Bible Encyclopedia. Here’s what it defines righteousness as. It’s conformity to a certain set of expectations, which vary from role to role. Righteousness is fulfillment. Fulfillment of an expectation in any relationship, whether with God or people. It’s applicable at all levels of society. It’s relevant in every area of life. Therefore, righteousness denotes fulfilled expectations in relationships between man and wife, parents and children, fellow citizens, employer-employee, merchant, customer, ruler and citizen, God and man. So there’s two overlapping things to consider when you’re righteous. The first one is an individual level. Your character, it is or isn’t right. And then secondly, righteousness as it pertains to a society of people. So the first one, and we’ve talked about this at length, haven’t we? We have that sin problem. So God, His character, whatever it is, is right. Our character, because of the sin problem, is not right. It’s bent a little. It’s twisted a little. So if we go in Genesis, God says the image of God is on you uniquely. We have the image of God. But that image of God is on you. That image is tarnished. So whatever we desire, whoever we are, it doesn’t look like it should. But secondly, then there’s this problem. There’s not one of us on the planet. We’re all here. Billions of us. And there’s been billions before. And there will be many after until Jesus returns. So the problem then exponentially multiplies. If I don’t know what it means to have right character, however I deal with a person is not going to be right. And then collectively as a society, we’re not going to deal right in God. We’re not going to deal right in God’s eyes. That’s the problem for us individually. And then corporately as people in societies. And I don’t even think that needs defining or arguing for. You look at wars. You look at crime. You look at gossip. You look at racism. You look at prejudice. We’re not good in society of loving and caring about one another. You look at the book of Judges in the Old Testament. It’s a cycle that people don’t do right by God or one another. He throws them into slavery. They get out of slavery after they repent. They go right back into not treating one another. One another or God correctly. So it’s a problem throughout time. It’s a problem today.
Here’s a headline you probably read this past week. New York passes bill allowing abortion up to birth for any reason.
Thunderous applause in state senate chamber.
We are not right.
So then it really becomes a problem. It really is in a wonder why Jesus would say it’s a blessed thing to hunger and thirst for righteousness. It’s a blessed thing surely because all these people that don’t hunger and thirst for righteousness, including myself, I’m going to have to face God’s just judgment. So if there is some way to circumvent or bypass that judgment and be different to hunger and thirst for righteousness, like I would want to know what that is. And if we’re truly disciples of Jesus, meaning we want to be disciples of Jesus, we want to follow after and embody His way of life and the power of the Spirit. Friends, we must be zealous to desire righteousness.
We must hunger and thirst for it as Jesus describes to us and as He demands of us. Which means this then. If we’re going to be followers of Jesus, we’re going to hunger and thirst for righteousness. It means it must be a daily pursuit. A daily pursuit.
Desire fuels pursuit.
Desire fuels pursuit. The thing that affects you most is going to shape what you pursue in life. Or in another way, the thing for which you are most affectionate is going to be the thing you spend your time, your energy, your money, your resources on. So your affections will shape what you think is right, who you are, how you treat both God and man. Alternatively, you could think about it in terms of slavery. In the truest sense of the word slave, a slave is fully, subject to his master’s whims, whether he likes his master or not. But as it is, friends, we’re slaves of sin. And naturally we are so because we like it. It’s a slavery we’re tragically fond of. And though that’s the sad lot of man, Jesus has restored us from that affection. He’s changed our affection to desire, not sin, not fleshly desire, not worldly offerings, not under the influence of the, the enemy, but the righteousness of Jesus. And I want you to hear how Jonathan Edwards, Puritan theologian says it. He says, everyone that has the power of godliness has his inclinations and heart exercised towards God and divine things with such strength and vigor that these holy exercises prevail in him above all carnal or natural affections. In our effectual, to overcome them. Hence, it follows that wherever true religion is, there are vigorous exercises of the inclination and will towards divine objects. So here’s what he’s saying. Whatever you love in your heart and soul, there’s no way getting around it. That’s what you’re going to outwardly exercise with your life. Your affections, your desires will shape your pursuit. So what you are truly hungry and thirsty for in life, you cannot hide it long. It’s going to be visible at some point in the way that you talk to talk about people talk to talk about God again in terms of slavery. See what Paul says in Romans chapter six, verse 15. He says, what then are we to sin because we are not under law, but under grace by no means. Do you not know that if you present yourself to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey either of sin, which leads to death or obedience, which leads to righteousness. But thanks be to God that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart. So there’s that place of desire to the standard of teaching to which you were committed and having been set free from sin have become slaves of righteousness. So a renewed desire in the spirit makes for renewed pursuit.
And pursuit is not passive preference. Pursuit is not passive interest. Pursuit is I’m never going to stop. I’m going to keep going on this journey. I got to have the thing until I’ve arrested it until I’ve attained it. The inward affection of my soul. So it’s survival. It’s like water in a desert place. That’s pursuit. I can’t go on if I don’t have this thing. So for the Christian disciple, the rightness of God is the desire. So it becomes a thing in which we are in hot pursuit. You say, wow, it must be survival. Why can’t I just really like it? But I’ve got other things I pursue. Well, because for the Christian, you understand to be a disciple of Christ, it’s soul and it’s exclusive. And if I’m not solely sold out to Jesus and exclusively following his way, well, then I’m a disciple of some body of religion, some teaching. But it’s not Jesus. Jesus demands our life. Jesus demands our all. So we get from the hunger and thirst metaphor, what? A very raised awareness. Awareness of our true food and drink, our only food and drink, Jesus, soul pursuit to glorify him, to be made like him and to see to it that others are affected by his righteousness, that they were to become disciples. That’s what disciples do. You you follow that way. You love that way only. And you help other people go in that way as well. And I think the psalmist a lot of times is read over, read the Psalms. They’re happy, they’re encouraging, and they are. But if you read the psalmist, you really get a sense of desire. He wants more than anything God. And I’m just going to run through a few passages where it’s true. Psalm 63, he says, my soul clings to you. That means follow hard after you could translate that. Psalm 63, one. Oh, God, you are my God earnestly. I seek you my soul. It was thirst for you. My flesh faints for you says I’m going to die if I don’t have you gone. Psalm 42 as the deer pants for flowing streams. So pants my soul for you. My soul thirst for God, for the living God. Psalm 119, 148. My eyes are awake before the watches of the night that I may meditate. So he’s saying all night. What am I doing? I’m like dwelling on you. Psalm 119, 97. Oh, how I love your Lord is my meditation all the day. So day and night, the righteousness of God is the food and the drink of the psalmist.
And I think we have to say, well, why does it have to be that intense? What’s got to be that intense? Because friends, if we, if we take an opportunity to starve ourself of it, you know what you do? You acquire taste for lesser things. And when you acquire taste for lesser things, you let yourself be satisfied with lesser things prone to wander. Lord, I feel it prone to leave the God I love. How true for that. Is this on a regular basis? The Christian life is lived daily, so it must be a daily pursuit of Jesus, of His righteousness alone.
And William Wilberforce, he was responsible in a lot of ways for the abolition of slavery in England in his time. He had this idea and he wouldn’t let it go. He failed in Parliament so many times to see it pass. It wasn’t until on his deathbed. That he was finally informed that slavery had been abolished. But it was his life pursuit. You can’t pursue great things sometimes. That’s why it’s a pursuit.
And I think marriage serves as a very useful illustration as well. I think sometimes people wonder why have I grown apart from my spouse. Why is it this way? Well, because you get really excited on wedding day. It feels good. You do love the person. But if you don’t. Cultivate and know that person deeper. What’s going to happen? You’re going to become estranged. So very much so marriage is a commitment to pursue. It doesn’t say I’ve arrived. It says I’m going to keep pursuing this person and growing in affections for them. So the question becomes this for us as Christians. How do you pursue Jesus well? That must be imperative for us. And I don’t think the answer the Scriptures try to keep from us. I think the Scriptures are very plain about how we pursue Jesus together. And it has so much to do with what we talked about last week in our meeting. We have to make local church life the center of our life. God has given us the Scriptures. God has given us one another to both pursue Him together in the Scriptures. To both in prayer pursue God and the things of God. To live in a community so we can fortify and protect one another. So we can together do that. I don’t think the Scriptures want us to find or innovate new ways. I don’t think the Scriptures want us to find or innovate new ways. I think the Scriptures want us to find or innovate new ways. Pursue Jesus. It’s very clear. Pursue Jesus in His Word. In the truth of His Word. With the people of God. Pursue Him in prayer. And just stay at that daily. Stay at that. That’s got to be a similar focal point of your life. And so I think it’s that. Again, back to the marriage illustration. I’ve got a nonchalant relationship with the Scriptures. I’ve got a nonchalant relationship with prayer. I’ve got a nonchalant relationship with believers who the Spirit uses to keep me and guard me, rebuke me. When I have a nonchalant relationship, why would I expect my perspective? Pursuit of Jesus. My knowledge of Jesus to be anything but that very thing. So I say to you, take the very plain practical means that God has given us to pursue Him. Louis Burckhoff in his work, Systematic Theology, talking about sanctification. What is sanctification? It’s that process by which we grow up in Jesus. He says it is only the work of God. Only God can produce salvation in you at your salvation. But only can He grow you up in that salvation too. That doesn’t mean we ignore the practical means. Friends, the practical means are gathering together, hearing the Word, studying the Word, praying the Word, a communion, seeing people baptized, that Jesus has just given us in His Word plainly the things we are to pursue, and we must daily then do that.
So blessed are the hungry and thirsty. Look back at verse 6.
It says, For they shall be satisfied.
Shall be satisfied.
So we talked about the tenses last week. The person who is poor in spirit. You get the kingdom now. I get the rule and reign of God in my heart now, and I want that now. But here Jesus says, the one who hungers and thirsts for righteousness shall be satisfied. Which, it sounds like a downer, but it’s not. Because you think about it, like I’m happy when in the future, when God’s kingdom comes fully, I’ll be satisfied in righteousness. Everyone will be right. I will be right. It will be a, it will be a perfect world then. But the question becomes, how do I keep, how do I stay now? Because it becomes plain, if I couldn’t save myself, how can I expect to preserve myself on the journey either? So I’m going to need this promise of a future satisfaction to give me some kind of supplemental satisfaction along the way. Because as great as the end of the journey would be, if I don’t have the power to get there, what’s it matter?
Well, that’s not the promise. The promise isn’t the Christian life’s miserable. It’s going to be really bad. But boy, if you can figure out a way to get to the end of it, it’s going to be great. That’s not the promise of the Christian life. And Jesus is explicit about it. Look with me, if you would, John chapter 4, verse 13.
John chapter 4, verse 13. John chapter 4, verse 13.
Jesus said to her, everyone who drinks of this water, will be thirsty again.
But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him, will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him, will become in him a spring of water, welling up to eternal life. So Jesus is somewhere, he’s not supposed to be as a Jew. He’s in Samaria. And Samaritans have a very weird version of Judaism. Jews don’t like them. They don’t like Jews. And you pass around. So here Jesus is talking to this woman. And this woman, not only has she not found satisfaction in her weird religion, she’s not found satisfaction in her five husbands that she’s had, nor the man she’s living with now. And it takes her a while to figure out, Jesus isn’t talking to me about H2O.
Jesus is talking about something else. What Jesus wants her to know is, you’ve never been satisfied,
because you’ve never known me. Jesus says, you keep trying to fill up a bucket, and the water, it just seems to go through, and you keep trying to fill it up, and you never have enough. And Jesus is making it very plain to the lady, here’s the reason why. You haven’t had, you haven’t known, you haven’t experienced me.
So Jesus is not saying, follow me and someday it will be good. Jesus is saying, in the midst of life now, as bad as life is, and life does get bad, Jesus is promising, promising a satisfaction in knowing him now. And in the satisfaction now, there’s this promise there’s going to be a satisfaction that I can’t even comprehend. That satisfaction is going to be amazing. But Jesus is also enough for me now. And Jesus talks about it as abiding. He says, if you abide in me, and I abide in you, you will bear much fruit. So Jesus is very explicit. The relationship is much like a vine and branches.
Jesus intends on us being healthy the whole time we travel. He said, I’m the one that gives you salvation. I’m the one that gives you life. Stay in me. You’ll be full. You’ll be supplied. You ever cut a leaf off of a tree? You cut a rose off? And it’s pretty, not very long. Why? It shrivels up and dies. But Jesus says, I will be both your satisfaction now, and your satisfaction in the new life, in the new world that is to come. So that’s good news for us. Paul talks about it in terms of a deposit. Paul says, you’re going to get a deposit of eternity now. I’m going to give you a guarantee. Here’s the guarantee. My spirit. And my spirit’s going to seal you. And my spirit’s going to keep you. And the taste of heaven, man, it’s going to be so good now. It’s going to keep you, and you’re going to keep looking forward to the greater satisfactions coming. Psalm 107.9, the psalmist says, for he satisfies the longing soul. It’s something he does right now. So God is good in this. He wants glory for Himself, because He should have glory for Himself. But He knows just as well, you and I won’t be satisfied until we’re satisfied in knowing His glory, because that’s what we were created for. When does the human truly have light? When does the human truly have joy? When is the human actually satisfied? When the human knows the human who came in the flesh and died and said, that’s free. In Jesus alone are we satisfied. So God always has our best interest at heart. And His best interest is to know Himself.
A.W. Tozer in his book, The Pursuit of God, says it like this, to have found God and still to pursue Him is the soul’s paradox of love. Scorned indeed by the two easily satisfied religionists, but justified in happy experience by the children, children of the burning heart.
Children of the burning heart. I think that’s one of those interesting words he uses. Like you love something, you love someone, you just have a fire inside. That’s why Paul tells Timothy, Timothy, fan that flame. Don’t let that flame go out. Let the fire burn. Because here’s the beauty of the gospel. When you and I are satisfied in the gospel, we’re not the only ones that get satisfied. Because as we’re satisfied, it produces fruit for the kingdom. You know who benefits from, the fruit? Everybody that eats from the tree. So here’s the one time the scriptures say, be a glutton. Glut yourself on Jesus and it’s going to benefit everybody else around you. That’s the good news of the gospel. As you feast on Jesus, everybody comes into the feast as well as Christ is produced in you and so Christ is seen and experienced through you. Charles Spurgeon says we grab rolls off of the table when Jesus is asking us to sit down and have a feast. He wants us, He wants us to be full in Him. He wants us to be satisfied in Him. Nothing else but Jesus alone. Tim Keller in his book, The Reason for God, he talks about it like this. Imagine a fish that’s sure it will be happy if it could be a land dweller.
But obviously you know if the fish left the place where it thrives, the fish would die. And so in the same way, friends, the gospel gives us eyes to see Jesus and Jesus alone. Jesus alone satisfies as nothing else can. So the pursuit then is this, Jesus. The satisfaction is knowing and growing in Jesus. But what’s that mean for us? Well, here’s what it means. It means quality control. You say, well, what do you mean quality control? I mean that it’s hard to know someone well when you just do it like this and you just put it into your schedule. The things you love are the things you dwell on. The psalmist often says I meditate on your life. Well, I can’t meditate when I wake up late and I pray really quick and I jump in the car and I drive to work. I can’t really feast on Christ when I’m halfway paying attention to the Word and I just do it to get it over with. I can’t feast on Christ and be satisfied when I don’t give Jesus the best of my time every day. So the pursuit means sacrificing other things. You can’t pursue one thing and not lose other things. So there’s the sacrifice is to attain the one thing. But Jesus says the sacrifice is good. So I would say to you these great glorious truths of eternity they flesh out in very practical means in your everyday life. What does it look like now to be satisfied in Jesus? Is it Happy Meal Jesus? I’ve got some there. I’ve got some here. I’m moving on. No, I’m building time in the morning. I’m building time in the afternoon. I’m savoring Jesus. That’s probably the best way to say it. Savor. I don’t usually get to eat good steaks because they’re expensive. But you know, when you eat a good and you’re like, well, that’s good and you don’t just eat it real fast. You savor it and it’s satisfying. And so Jesus desires to be satisfying because He created us to be satisfied in Him. So friends, we must push against our own flesh that says be satisfied in lesser things. A world that says be satisfied in so many things and an enemy that says don’t be satisfied at all in this Jesus. But Jesus has come and preached to us and said, I am your true food. I am your true drink. Are you satisfied in Jesus?
Here’s what the prophet Isaiah says in Isaiah chapter 55. I think we see the goodness of the Lord again in this. It wasn’t a last minute plan to satisfy us in Jesus. Like they messed up in the garden. What are we going to do with them now?
It was always the plan for us as the Lord’s bride to be satisfied in Him. See? That’s what Isaiah says in 55. He says, Come,
everyone who thirsts, come to the waters.
And he who has no money,
come buy and eat. Come buy wine and milk without money and without price. I’ve never bought something without money. This is a weird economy. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread and you labor for that which does not, does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me and eat what is good and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear and come to me. Hear that your soul may live and I will make with you an everlasting covenant my steadfast, sure love for David. Why does he invoke David? Because we’re promised that the Messiah, the satisfying one, would come in the line of David. This great king in David’s line would come and he would satisfy us in righteousness. He would rule and reign in equity and righteousness and those who surrender to him and desire him will be satisfied.
The ones eternally satisfied with righteousness are the ones that never stop pursuing it. The ones who never stop desiring it more than anything else believed that God desired it for them. God wants that for you. He’s calling you to desire it for yourself and so then he gets the glory when we desire and love and follow Jesus and pursue him above everything else. And we can do it because Jesus, He first in our place made satisfaction for sin. Jesus first in our place satisfied the wrath of God so that we could know Him again and be satisfied. Jesus is the one who pursued the will of God and did what was right. Right in God’s eyes and so made a way for us to pursue and have Him and to have the Father. Friends, with such a kingdom before us, with such a good King, such a feast of eternal joy in life, let us take hold of it freely for Christ offers it freely.
I don’t want to pause in my pursuit to attain Jesus.
And I’m not saying I won’t, but I’m saying I want it to break my heart when I do. And I want to remember God’s loving kindness to put me back on the straight and narrow and to dust me off and say, hey, my grace is sufficient. My Son has already done this in your place and you’re secure and you’re kept and He’s your joy. He’s your true food. He’s your true drink, friends. Is Jesus your food this morning? Is Jesus your drink? Because the promise is if He is, you will be. You shall be satisfied.
That’s what Jesus says in John chapter 6.
Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life. And I will raise him up on the last day for My flesh is true food and My blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me and I in him as the living Father sent Me and I live because of the Father. So whoever feeds on Me,
he also will live because of Me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Not like the bread the fathers ate and died.
No, whoever feeds on this bread will live forever. Forever.
Live forever. That’s what Jesus is calling us to. That’s what Jesus is offering freely. And it’s what Jesus, by the power of His Spirit, is enabling us to attain. Friends, let’s take hold of Christ. Let’s take hold of eternity.
And in so, find all joy for the glory of God. Let’s pray.
Just with your heads bowed and your eyes closed, I just want to give you space to, well, to repent.
Just to ask the Lord to come in spirit and just convict you
where you’re hungry and you’re thirsty for the lesser things.
Where you need this morning to just ask the Lord to stir up in you a revival.
To stir up in you desire to awaken your affections for heaven and to choke out your affections for the earth. The temporal things in this life.
I just want you to prepare your heart. This morning we just have the privilege to take the Lord’s service. And if you’re here and you’ve accepted the Lord Jesus as your Savior, we invite you to take with us. But the Scriptures do say, examine yourself. Know that you are in a place where you’re ready to take the bread and to take the cup and truly remember this feast. Remember this feast. So I’m just going to give you a few minutes to pray to yourself. And I’ll pass out the elements here in just a little bit. Lord Jesus, we love you. We just bless your name.
Just ask for a mighty work in our hearts and our lives and our church, God, and that it would all be for your glory.
Amen.
Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
Amen.
Amen. Amen. Amen.
Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
Amen. Amen.
Amen. Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
Amen.
Amen. Well, friends, we take the, um, the bread this morning and we remember Jesus’ body. It was broken to make atonement for our sins.
And when we drank the cup, we remember that Jesus willingly spilled his blood and he promised that he wouldn’t drink of it again until he’s with us in glory, so we can drink this, knowing that Jesus, um, wills us to water our is with us until we see Him again.
Amen. I invite you to stand with us and we’re going to worship with one more song.