Anticipation: Peace

Good morning, family.

Morning.

Hey, before we get rolling this morning we need to have a family meeting. And don't worry, it's nothing major but if you're new with us, you're like, "I've never heard of a family meeting before." If you've been with us since I've been here every once in awhile we have to take care of some family business and so this is an opportunity for us to have a family meeting. If you're not part of the family or if you're like, "Hey, I'm new here. I feel like I'm sitting in on sacred space," just hang out for a minute, check your email, whatever. We just need to have a family meeting.

I need to let you guys know about some things that are going to be coming down the pike. February the 27th, which is... Is that six weeks from now? We are going to be going back to two services. And here one of the major whys on it: When we started three services, we started it coming out of when the world shutdown and we wanted to make sure that we could manage numbers and space. And remember, you had to reserve a seat, and when you reserved that seat it blocked all the seats around you automatically, and so we were trying to be really careful about all of that. Number one, we're in a space where that's no longer necessary.

Number two, one of the things that I get to manage in my job is the ROI on energy units given by volunteers. Are we making sure that we're maximizing the investment that people are giving? Because it's a sacrifice to give. I get paid to be here, I get paid to be good. Volunteers got to be good for nothing and so... My dad used to say that joke all the time and I think it's funny. I want to make sure that we keep our volunteers healthy emotionally, healthy spiritually, and I don't want to burn anybody out because that's not healthy, that's not good, and so we always want to manage that.

The ROI on three services doesn't merit saying at three services, not at this point. If we need to go back to three services we certainly can at some point, but at this point it's going to be far more effective for us to go back to two services. We're going to do 9:00 and 11:00. It'll be just like old times, just like it used to be before the world fell apart. We're going to do 9:00 and 11:00 and we're looking forward to that. That will create greater numbers in this room, and I know that for some of us [inaudible 00:03:32] "I was comfortable with the smaller numbers but I'm not comfortable now with bigger numbers," I understand that and that's okay. We have a really amazing online experience if that's where you're at, and I say that with... I'm not trying to get angsty about that at all, I wanted to make sure we're doing the best that we can for everybody involved in this, and so we want to make you aware of that so that you know February the 27th you can come at 10:00 but you'll be like, "This is weird. I feel like I'm coming in the middle of a service," and you would be correct. February 27th. Put that in your calendars. We're going back to two services, 9:00 and 11:00. Family meeting closed. See? That wasn't so bad, wasn't so bad. It's not always bad news.

Okay, we are in week two and we have a mountain of material to cover. You guys ready to go to work? We are going to talk about how to get peace today. And this is a big deal because this is one of those topics that's a hard one for people, it's a hard one for people, especially... We talked a little bit about this last week. My life group has continued to meet through the life group break because we actually love Jesus and stuff. Just joking. We've been meeting and we were talking last Sunday night. My group meets on Sunday night and we were talking about the sermon from last week. And it's always interesting when I preach the sermon to hear people's take on what I said. That's always fascinating to me. But they would, "Man, that was super heavy." We were talking about the unsettledness of the world of Jesus, and we're not... We're living in unsettled times as well. Maybe not in the same exact context but we have our own particular set of unsettledness in our world and so we've got to figure out how do we have peace in unsettled spaces? How do we do that? And I think for many of us, we came in here today especially unpeaceful, and so I want to offer to you that the holy spirit has got plans for you for the messages. This peace message is actually really significant.

And we're going to root it in Matthew, chapter one, verses 18 to 25. Here's what it says, "Now, the birth of Jesus Christ took place this way: When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph," that's an engagement on steroids. In their world, when a couple agrees to be married they enter into a betrothal period. There's a dowry exchanged, there's a lot of... The legal transaction piece has been done. They won't consummate the marriage until later on when they actually have the ceremony, the wedding ceremony, but they are in a space where legally they're married. And because of all this exchange of stuff, in order to unravel all of that, you have to actually go through a legal divorce, the equivalent same as you would if you were actually in a fully consummated marriage.

He's been betrothed to Joseph. Before they came together, she was found to be with child from the holy spirit. Now, here's the thing. I have two daughters. One is married and one is not. If either one of them came to me and said, "Hey dad, I'm pregnant, but don't worry, it's okay because it was the holy spirit," I would immediately say to my daughter, "Okay, why don't you bring Mr. Holy Spirit in here? And he and I are going to have a chat." There would be more or less talking, depending on how that chat went, but they're not anymore naïve about this than you or I are. If my daughter came to me and was like, "I'm pregnant, but it was the holy spirit," sure, sure.

Well, that's exactly where they're at, and so this raises a question for me. Do you even really want to be used by God? Because if you say yes to that, on the surface that sounds great but what it looks like to me is that often people who are chosen to be used by God in really profound ways go through some really difficult stuff. She's carrying a shame that isn't her fault. And this is a big one, this is a bringing shame on the whole family kind of shame. And her husband, Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame resolved to divorce her quietly.

Now, I want to touch on this one because Joseph is a stud; he's awesome. He's unwilling to put her to shame. Now, again, think about it from his perspective. "Hey Joseph, I'm pregnant but it's okay because it was the holy spirit." He's got to feel cheated on. I don't know about you but put me in that position, I'm going to throw her trash in the street. "Oh, you humiliated me so watch how I humiliate you." That's why God didn't choose me, that's why he chose Joseph. He's a just man unwilling to put her to shame. He does not know this is from God yet, he doesn't know yet. Now, he's going to know in just a little bit but he doesn't know yet, and in that space he still chooses to be a man of character. That's incredible.

He has in mind to divorce her quietly. Now, he has three options. One is he can have her stoned, he can have her killed. The second one is he can have her publicly shunned and put out of the village so she doesn't have a family, she doesn't have a [inaudible 00:10:11], she has no one to protect her. Or he can divorce her quietly, and he chooses this third option.

Now, the other option that he has is he can not do anything and take her as his wife, but if he does that he's admitting that it's his. Does that make sense? He's like, "We blew it. We were looking at the stars, and the breeze, and the birds were chirping." He's admitting that it's his, he's admitting that it's his.

And so in order for him to do this he has to be willing to take on her shame, and it's not his. He didn't do anything. She didn't do anything wrong either, but do you want to be used by God? Because it feels a little bit like, man, this is tough, this is a tough spot for both of them. He's like, "I'm not keeping her around. I'm not admitting that that's mine."

But as he considered these things, behold an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream saying, "Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife for what that which is conceived in her is from the holy spirit, and she will bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus for he will save his people from their sins." And all this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet. "Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and they shall call his name Emmanuel which means God with us." By the way, they don't call his name that, they call his name Jesus, not Emmanuel, but this is really important, this name thing, because it gives us a picture of God's intended heart for Jesus, for the messiah when he shows up. It's God's with us, he's with us.

When Joseph woke from his sleep he did as the angel of Lord commanded him, and I love that. We'll talk more about that here in a little bit. He took his wife but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. He didn't even try to... even at that point, he didn't even try to make excuses to do the wrong thing. He still continued being a man of honor. And he called his name Jesus.

What an unpeaceful set of circumstances. And we'll talk more about this as we go on through the advent season, but there's nothing pretty and beautiful and delicate and wonderful and good. This is hard and so much misunderstanding and lack of peace. There's no peace, which raises this question in my mind: How can Joseph hang in there and seem to me like the angel said, "I'll do it." He's just like, "Yep." How do we have peace in unpeaceful circumstances? How do we do that?

Here's the thing. We often want to try to find peace in one of two ways. Either peace is the absence of any conflict in our circumstances, so we have good... All of our circumstances are good so therefore I'm at peace, which we all know that's... number one, that peace is fickle, and number two, it's very short lived because circumstances around us are constantly changing and completely out of our control.

The second way that we try to find peace is through our own grit and determination. I am tough enough to endure this well and therefore I will have peace. By the way, if that's your approach to peace life will break you, it just will. Eventually, the pile gets too big. And there's something to be said for grit, there's something to be said for fortitude, there's something to be said for being willing to stand in there and keep fighting even when other people have quit. There's something to be said for that. But that's not the source of peace. Peace is rooted in God's character. And because of that, God's character never changes. We can rest and have peace because of who he is and how he feels about me.

Now, I've had a number of people talk to me this week. And not anybody in a belligerent way but genuinely like, "Hey, last week you said God's neither for you nor against you, and I'm wrestling with that." I said, "I know, he's for his glory." "Yeah, but that..." What we do is we interpret that as that God doesn't care, he's distant. No, no, no, no, God is for your good but for his glory. God is 100% for your good but for his glory, not for your own comfort. And what we want to do is interpret God as for me means that God's going to make my life easier. Maybe, maybe, but maybe things are going to get harder. And maybe some things will get good and some things will get hard. Maybe the circumstances will be some kind of way but the thing is my peace isn't rooted in any of that, my peace is rooted in God's character which doesn't change, and that's actually kind of cool.

Look at Psalm 73. Psalm from brother Asaph. We read from him last week, miss old Asaph. And he has a lot to say in the Psalms. And he's actually a pretty insightful guy. Here's what he says: "Truly God is good to Israel to those who are pure in heart. But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled, my steps had nearly slipped for I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked for they had no pangs until death. Their bodies are fat and sleek." That's a sign of wealth in their world. Being heavy is a sign that you have enough money to eat too much. That's the way it works in that world. He's like, "They don't have any worries, they're not hungry ever. They're not in trouble as others are, they're not stricken like the rest of mankind, therefore pride is their necklace. Violence covers them as a garment. Their eyes swell out through their fatness." I don't know what that looks like but I think that's a funny statement.

"Their hearts overflow with follies. They scoff and speak with malice. Loftily, they threaten oppression. They set their mouths against the heavens and their tongue struts through the earth." I don't know what that would look like but imagine a good tongue strut. "Therefore, his people turn back to them and find no fault in them. And they say, "How can God know? Is there knowledge in the most high?" Behold, these are the wicked always at ease. They increase in riches. All in vain I've kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence for all the day long I have been stricken and rebuked every morning."

By the way, have you ever felt that way? "God, I'm living right and those people are living bad and they have it so easy and mine's so hard." Listen, when you're in the ministry, you have a massive trump card on that conversation. "And I've dedicated my life to full-time Christian service." We all visit that place so if you're there I'm not making fun of you, that's a common space where we all go. The, "God, I've done all the right things. Surely in vain I've kept my heart pure." And God's like, "Really, your heart's so pure? Fine." If I had said, "I will speak thus," I would've betrayed the generation of your children. But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task until I went to the sanctuary of God.

Which, by the way, if there was ever a really good reason for us to be in church, the world is a confusing place and if we're going to try and figure it out on our own, you're really going to struggle. It's important for us to come together as a church family. It's important for us to worship together. It's important for us to look at God's word together. It's important for us to do that because it helps us focus our mind on better questions. It helps us focus our mind on deeper truths because what we do is we get lost in trying to get God to give me the world's values. God's not interested in the world's values, he's interested in his own. We don't understand why following God doesn't make me wealthy. Well, because following God was never a promise to get you wealthy. It is a promise to help you become holy, but that's a different conversation.

It seems a worrisome task to try to solve it out there. We need this corporate space. "Until I went into the sanctuary of God and then a discerned therein. Truly, you've set them in slippery places. You make them fall to ruin; how they're destroyed in a moment, swept away utterly by terrors like a dream when no one awakes. Oh Lord, when you rouse yourself you despise them as phantoms. When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart I was brutish and ignorant."

Which, by the way, that's the problem with getting sucked into this conversation without a good perspective on God's character is that it destroys my own. And you've seen people who try to live in that space where they're like, "I'm following God but I'm doing it under my own power. The joy of the Lord is my strength." Really? You brighten the room by leaving it. That's what happens when you try to follow the Lord under your own strength. That's what happens because it really does become about my own will and grit and, "I will endure." That's not the heart of God for us. That's not the heart that God wants us to portray to the world either.

"I was brutish and ignorant. I was like a beast toward you. Nevertheless I am continually with you. You hold my right hand, you guide me with your council, and afterwards you receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And there's nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever, for behold those who are far from you shall perish. You put an end to everyone who was unfaithful to you, but for me it is good to be near God. I've made the Lord my refuge that I may tell of all your works."

There are crazy situations that go on in the world and lots of really good questions that come out of those contexts, but it's pressing into the nature of God, learning to trust and rest in his character, that's what gives us peace, that's what gives us peace. Nothing else can do that because I don't have to get shaken or upset by the fac that things around me are haywire. God hasn't changed.

Which raises a question. Okay, if peace comes from confidence in the character of God then how do I build confidence in the character of God? That would be what I would want to know. Well, I'm glad you've asked that and we're going to talk about it.

I see at least three attributes in the life of Joseph that I want to move through quickly, and then I want to help us get to maybe why we have a disconnect with these three things. The first one that we see in the life of Joseph is moral purity. He's really serious about his moral standard. Look at back in verse 18. Here's what it says. It says, "Now, the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child by the holy spirit." He has every, number one, every reason to feel betrayed. Again, from his perspective. The problem is we read it from God's perspective, we read it with, oh, it actually was the holy spirit. He should've trusted. Yeah, put yourself in the situation; see how you would've done. For me, I would've really struggled with that, I would've really struggled with that. His character is unbelievable.

This a quote from Dr. Randall Smith. Here's what he says: "I submit the record of verse 18 was intended to remind believers of the fact that God held moral purity in high regard, and he still does." We shouldn't skip past that as a feature of some archaic moral code that isn't good for our time. God designed the family, God designed sex, God sets the rules and told us what he intended. Every other view is meaningless at best and open rebellion at worst. At some point in our life, if you want peace we're going to have to come to terms with the fact that God understands how this world is supposed to work so when he invites us to live in it in a certain kind of way, that is for our good.

Second Peter, chapter one, verse five. Here's what it says: "For this reason make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue and virtue with knowledge." That word virtue can also be translated moral upstanding. Supplement your faith with moral upstanding. Think about it this way: You can say you believe whatever you want to say you believe but it's the choices that you make in your life in front of other people that really define who you are. And that's the problem that the world has with the church.

There's some preacher, I think it was maybe Tony Campolo, somebody said this in the '80s: "What the unbelieving world can't believe is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips but deny him by their lifestyle. That's what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable." All the way back to second Peter, he's like, "Listen, supplement your faith with moral upstanding." If you say you believe in Jesus, act like it. I was like, gosh Aaron, you're awfully harsh. You're never going to find peace until you're willing to trust that God and his character has given us boundaries for our good. And in those boundaries we find an understanding of how the world is actually supposed to function because the same God that gave us those boundaries is the same God that created the world, and so he created it all to function in harmony and then he put our boundaries in our life to help us live in that harmony well. When we get in the way of it, it becomes a problem.

Second thing that we see in the life of Joseph is that he's compassionately wise and not particularly old at this point. He's still relatively young so the depth of wisdom in this guy for a young guy is pretty impressive, it's pretty impressive. Go back to the second half of verse 18 and verse 19. Here's what it says: "Before they came together she was found to be with child from the holy spirit and her husband, Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame resolved to divorce her quietly." Man, what an incredible guy he was. By the way, he doesn't have to do that.

Deuteronomy chapter 22, verses 23 to 26. Here's the divorce law that would apply to his situation. Here's what it says: "If there is a betrothed virgin and a man meets her in the city and lies with her, then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city and you shall stone them to death with stones, the young woman because she did not cry for help though she was in the city and the man because he violated his neighbor's wife." Now, just to put a little bit of context here. This is basically the law is saying if he comes... They're in the city and she doesn't cry out, she's giving consent. Really, she doesn't have a choice. She does have a choice. She's giving consent in this situation.

Joseph doesn't know what the scenario holds for Mary. He doesn't know how she got pregnant so what could be is this could be the scenario. "So you shall purge the evil from your midst but if in the open country a man meets a young woman who's betrothed and the man seizes her and lies with her then only the man who lay with her shall die." Why? Because there's nobody to help her. "But you shall do nothing to do the young woman. She has committed no offense punishable by death for this case is like that of a man attacking and murdering his neighbor." Joseph is making a decision to treat her in the best case scenario. Compassionate wisdom. He could have destroyed her and in a state of deep offense.

I know that for me, I would really struggle to care for her wellbeing in light of the sense of betrayal. I would really struggle. I would hope that I would have the character of Joseph but I know in my own heart I would really have a hard time doing that. Let me back that up a step further. Option A is I hope I don't ever have to make that choice. Option B is I hope that if I did I would act like Joseph. Option C is I know my own heart, and that's going to be a struggle. Number three, Joseph is responsive to God's word. And I want to say that probably more than anything else, this is the part that if we're going to struggle to have peace, this is probably the part where we fall off the wagon the quickest.

If you go back to 20 to 25, verses 20 to 25, here's what it says: "As he considered these things, behold an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream saying, "Joseph, the son of David, so not fear to take Mary as your wife for what is conceived in her is from the holy spirit and she'll bear a son and she'll call his name Jesus for he will save his people from their sins." And all this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet. Which, by the way, I wonder if as Joseph is hearing the angel talk if it's Joseph that calls the scripture to mind. He's like, "Oh, that's like Isaiah. This is actually kind of a big deal." "Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son and they shall call his name Emmanuel which means God with us. When Joseph woke from his sleep, he did as the angel the Lord commanded him and he took his wife but knew her not until she had given birth to a son and he called his name Jesus."

Now, we're going to talk about two really big theological words. If you have been in the church 30, 40, 50 years you are like, "Now we are preaching." If you have been in the church and you're relatively new to your faith, you're like, "I have never heard these words before in my life." That is okay. We are going to hopefully put our mind around two really important theological concepts that I think help us understand why we struggle to find peace this way.

The first word is the word justification. Big word, justification. You're going to sound really smart when you come out here. You're like, "I'm justified." True. If you've acknowledged Jesus as your lord and savior, you are justified. Now, here's what it means to be justified. It means to be declared righteous. Now remember, we've talked a lot about righteousness. Righteousness is right standing in relationship. What that means is if you are justified you have right standing in relationship. From a biblical standpoint, there's no merit that you have on your own to justify you so we have to figure out a way how to be in right standing with God. But the other word is also really, really important. We're going to apply them, so hang with me through this part.

The other word is sanctification. We have justification, then we have sanctification. Sanctification means to set apart, to declare something as holy. In other words, it means to make it sacred, to make something appear sacred. That's what sanctification does for you and me. It makes us look sacred to the world. We look different than the world does. That's what sanctification does for us.

Why do I need to know that? Well, Romans chapter five, verse one, here's what it says. It says, "Therefore..." Any time you see a therefore, you should ask yourself-

What's it for?

... what's it there for? It's a great Bible study tool, it's a great Bible study tool. Here's the conversation's been going on in the book of Romans. The Jews and the gentiles in the church in Rome are competing for who God loves more. And their competition is rooted in we deserve it more. "We are more righteous than you." Both sides are saying that to the other side. And what Paul says is, "Neither one of you is righteous. You're all a bunch of moral reprobates. It is solely God's love through Jesus Christ's gift that you have access to the father, and that is it. You don't earn that." He says, "Therefore, since we've been justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord, Jesus Christ." We're justified, declared righteous. We're made in right standing with God because of our faith in Jesus Christ.

Now, faith isn't mental ascent. The Greek word for faith is the Greek word pistis. It would be better translated faithfulness. It's a belief that leads to an action. It's something that actually changes how I live. I am acknowledging that this thing is so true that from here forward I got to be different. And what you and I do too much in the church... And not you specific but we in the church. What we do is we look at justification as the finish line. I'm out, I'm in, I'm bad, I'm good. Except that the problem is have any of us struggled with our badness since you said yes to Jesus? Dang it. But it doesn't matter because I'm good but... And we treat justification like a light switch, like I'm on, I'm off, I'm in, I'm out, I'm good, I'm bad, I'm black, I'm white. We try to put it in these extremes where we start in one place and leap with one decision to a completely other place.

I am in right standing with God because of faithfulness in Christ but I also need sanctification. Sanctification makes me look... It sets me apart as holy. And so the question is how do I get that? How do I get to all that's sanctified? John 17, Jesus answers this question. He's in the garden praying right before he gets arrested, and he's talking to the Lord about his disciples. And here's what he says: "I've given them your word, and the world has hated them because they're not of this world, just as I'm not of this world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world." By the way, that's actually really significant because when we're facing difficult circumstances, we often pray that the Lord would take us out of those difficult circumstances. That's not what Jesus prayed for, it's not what Jesus prayed for.

And so the implication of that is when you're praying for God to take you out of difficult circumstances, you may actually be praying against the will of God unknowingly. I don't like that. I want God to put me in a meadow with roses and butterflies. I don't know why those two things, but... And cotton candy. I really like cotton candy.

But he says, "I don't ask you to take him out of the world, but that you keep him from the evil one, that they don't give in to the desires to quit. They're not of this world just as I am not of this world. Sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth." How do we look set apart? How do we do that? We do that when we choose to live by the truth. Well, where do we find God's truth? In the word. "Sanctify them by the truth. Your word is truth." How do we let the world know who our God is so we're justified by faith? I'm saved. Yes, thank you, Jesus, for grace, but how do we let the world know how amazing our God is? Not by calling ourself a Christian and living like the devil. We show the world how amazing our God is by living according to the truth of his word. And what's interesting is that we fight that so much and we want to get at it, we want to pick apart the word. It's archaic, it's irrelevant, it's an unuseful book.

Listen, here's what I know to be true: When I live according to God's word, it's the most relevant book I read. When I let the principles be what they are and read the Bible and do what it says, it's so simple it's painful. And it works, it works. So many of us are trying to find peace because we're excited about justification but we have no interest in sanctification. And what I would say is peace comes from being sanctified. Peace comes when we're living according to the truth of God's word. Peace comes when we trust God's character enough to live by his truth.

I have some implications for us. We're going to move through them quickly. Implication number one: Peace is rooted in the character of God. And that is such good news because God's character doesn't change. Implication number two: Joseph was able to trust the character of God because of his desire to honor God with his whole life. He wasn't just trying to use God for salvation, he wanted to honor God with his whole life, and that's a very different posture before the Lord. Implication number three: We have right standing in our relationship with God because of our faith, but we look like God to the world when we allow the truth of his word to determine our actions. Both are necessary. There's not one more important than the other. Both are necessary. We just like the saving part, we don't like the discipline of the lifestyle part, and that's hard. Number four: We have real peace in this world when God's character shows up in our actions.

I'll tell you a story. When our oldest daughter graduated high school and she was in the phase of life where she was working to find her own faith and she was struggling for a bit, and I was, as a dad, super scared because this is our first one. And I'm like, "And we did it wrong. Look." I told my kids I didn't save for college, I saved for therapy, so obviously it's time to get started. Through a series of events we took her to a college; she decided she wanted to study counseling. And the college that we agreed upon was in Charlotte... or, excuse me, in Charleston, South Carolina. We lived in north Idaho. It's literally the furthest possible point away in the United States from us.

And she's super insecure, not real stable in her faith, and I was scared to death. And we were having our last meal together and she's like, "Dad, I don't know what I believe about this whole God thing right now." And I was like, man, I feel like I need to say something really profound here and I'm drawing a blank. I'm supposed to have words for this moment as the dad and I got nothing. And so all I could tell her was this: I was like, "Hey, I know that God loves you even more than I do and I know that Jesus is a really incredible model for how to live our life regardless of what we believe so when you don't know what to do in your life just always act like Jesus. You'll never go wrong with that." I got in the car and i was like, "Oh gosh." Kelly and I drove our cars and my daughter's standing in the parking lot of this little chicken shack restaurant, and I'm like...

But I can tell you this: Peace comes when God's actions show up in our lives. When God's character shows up in how we live out our lives it's a weird thing. When we just do what's consistent with what the scriptures teach, when we do that it creates a heart favorable for God to move. And I love leading into communion with that space. Peace comes when God's character shows up in my actions, this character of laying my life down for the wellbeing of people around me. What a gift, what a gift.

Maybe we need to take a minute to say Lord, I've been using you for salvation but I haven't really longed to look more like you to the world, and today I want to fix that. Let's talk with the Lord as we prepare our hearts for communion. On the night Jesus was betrayed, he took bread and he broke it. He said, "This is my body which is given for you, so whenever you eat this bread do it in remembrance of me." Let's remember him this morning. And then after the dinner, he took a cup and he said, "This cup, this is the blood of the covenant which is shed for you, so whenever you drink this cup do it in remembrance of me."

Let's pray. Lord, we love you. God, thank you for your grace, thanks for this incredible invitation to trust your character. Thank you that your character is secure, it's stable and that it never changes. God, thank you for your grace. In Jesus' name, amen.