And God said to Jacob, Arise, go up to Bethel, and dwell there. Make an altar to the God who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau. So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, Put away the foreign gods that are among you, and purify yourselves, and change your garments. Then let us arise and go up to Bethel, so that I may make there an altar to the God who answers me in the day of my distress, and has been with me wherever I have gone." So they gave to Jacob all the foreign gods that they had and the rings that were in their ears. And Jacob hid them under the terebinth tree that was near Shechem. And as they journeyed, a terror from God fell upon the cities that were around them, so that they did not pursue the sons of Jacob. And Jacob came to Luz, that is Bethel, which is in the land of Canaan, he and all the people who are with him. And there he built an altar and called the place El Bethel, because there God had revealed himself to him when he fled from his brother. And Deborah, Rebekah's nurse, died and she was buried under an oak below Bethel. And so he called its name Elan-Bakuth. God appeared to Jacob again when he came from Padan-Aram, and he blessed him. And God said to him, Your name is Jacob. No longer shall your name be called Jacob, but Israel shall be your name." So he called his name Israel. And God said to him, I am God Almighty, be fruitful and multiply. A nation and a company of nations shall come from you, and kings shall come from your own body. The land that I gave to Abraham and Isaac I will give to you, and I will give the land to your offspring after you. And then God went up from him in the place where he had spoken with him. And Jacob set up a pillar in the place where he had spoken with him, a pillar of stone. And he poured out a drink offering on it and poured oil on it. So Jacob called the name of the place where God had spoken with him, Bethel. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever and ever. Let's pray. Gracious Father, we pray that you would once again allow us to hear the voice of your Son, our great Prophet, who stands in our midst. We pray, O God, that you would open your word to us, and by your Spirit bless it to our hearing, that we might recall the great lessons that we learned from Jacob in his life, and help us, Lord, to see the things that he saw by faith. As we dwell in the house of God, we pray that You would bless us as You blessed Him. And so we pray, reveal Yourself to us, Lord Jesus, in Your Word. In Jesus' name, Amen. Last week I began a sermon by quoting from Isaiah 58. Isaiah 58, a reminder of the blessings of Sabbath-keeping. And I quoted one of my professors from the seminary that I attended who said, somewhat provocatively but however true as can be, that if the Christian church would repent of its Sabbath-breaking, we would see revival in our lands. And the proof for that is there in Isaiah 58. And I'll ask you to turn there again with me as we consider those words. Because it is a very fitting and very really appropriate passage to consider in light of our passage tonight. And so Isaiah 58, these wonderful promises, you've read them before and you know them. Beginning in verse 13, if you turn back your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on My holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, and the holy day of the Lord honorable, if you honor it, not going your own ways, or seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly, then you shall take delight in the Lord. And I will make you ride on the heights of the earth, and I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken." And as it's said before many times, what could a Christian want more than these things? What does the godly soul want more than anything else, if not this? To delight yourself in the Lord your God. That you would treasure Him more than any other thing. To ride on the heights of the earth, to be fed with the heritage of Jacob your father. What in the world does that mean? Well, tonight we're going to learn what it means to feed on the heritage of Jacob, your father. So as we turn back to our passage tonight, here Jacob returns to the place that he vowed to go way back 27 years before You can read about it in Genesis chapter 28, verses 20 and following. We're there, remember that story where Jacob was on his way to that time of service in Laban's household. He was on his way. He had obtained what he wanted, but he didn't have the pleasure of it. He had the blessing of God. He had the birthright of God, the things that he wanted as a godly man. But he obtained it in a way that was somewhat sketchy, wasn't it? Somewhat arrogant, somewhat deceitful. And he had no joy with the blessing. He had no joy with the birthright. And here he is, he's never going to see his mother again. He won't see his father again for 27 years. And he's on his way away from a brother who wants to put an arrow in his heart. And so he lays down his head on a stone, out in the wilderness. And the Lord God, seeing his covenant son, visits him in a dream. And what does Jacob see in his dream? Ah, a stairway. coming down from heaven. This isn't the stairway that you climb, though. It is the stairway that the Lord uses to climb down to us. And there Yahweh Himself, God Himself, climbs down the stairway and stands by him and proclaims over sleeping Jacob blessings. And he awakes the next morning from his dream, having seen angels, having seen the gateway to heaven. And with this gateway to heaven, he declares, I didn't know it, but I'm in the very house of God, Bethel. He is in the meeting place between heaven and earth, where God meets with His people. So He names the place Bethel, and He makes a vow there in chapter 28, verses 20 and following. He says, I vow to return to this place. I will come back here, and I will set up an altar here. And this is where God's house can be to worship. And that vow wouldn't be forgotten by God. God would remind Him again. He would remind Him again. In chapter 31, verse 13, Jacob. as you're leaving Laban's household after 20 years in service, after 20 long years away from his homeland. Don't forget your vow, Jacob. Go back to Bethel. But what does he do? On his way back home, he meets his brother Esau. He meets the angel of the Lord who names him Israel. But after he meets his brother Esau, where does he go? It's astonishing. Look with me at chapter 33. Genesis 33, just turn a page back and verse 18, where does Jacob go after 20 years? Where should he have gone to fulfill his vow? He should have gone back to Bethel. Where does he go? And Jacob came safely to the city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, on his way from Paddan Aram, and he camped before the city. And from the sons of Hamor, Shechem's father, he bought for a hundred pieces of money the piece of land on which he had pitched his tent. And there he erected an altar and called it El Eloi Israel." Jacob has decided not to keep his vow. He's decided not to return to the place that he had vowed to go to worship God. He's going to Shechem. Now, this isn't immediately obvious that it's completely wrong. In fact, it actually looks somewhat pious. What does he do? He builds an altar there. It looks somewhat respectable. The problem is that God doesn't appear to him here. You see, God appears to him in the place that he's chosen. And he hasn't chosen Shechem. It's not a good place to be. If you turn to page chapter 34, what happens there? You remember, it's disaster. Jacob's household is devastated. Dinah, his precious daughter, is raped by the pagans there. She is, in a worldly way, walking through the city unaccompanied. In a worldly way, being seen and to see the things of this world. And they're in a dangerous place where she's been led by her father. She is tragically treated shamefully there. His sons are tempted into great sin by Jacob's passivity and idolatry. His sons there become brutal murderers. His sons, they're taking the vengeance, the sword of vengeance in their hands. The children, as we'll see, as we saw here in chapter 35, become idolaters. They have taken up the household gods of the pagans. They began to wear the jewelry of the pagans. They began to wear the garments of the pagans. They have become worldly inside and out, you see. Why? Because Jacob is not where he's supposed to be. Jacob is not where he's supposed to be. And therefore, everything is spiritually wrong. So this, brothers and sisters, as you bear with me, I thank you as we set the stage, you see, for what's happening. And then in chapter 35, God comes to Jacob after this terrible chapter 34. Chapter 35, God comes to Jacob, an old man now. Jacob, arise, go up to Bethel and dwell there. After 27 years, don't you think it's time to go back to that place? And Jacob repents. You see in verses 1 through 5 that Jacob truly repents of his vow breaking, of his despising of Bethel for the worldly riches of Shechem. And he calls his family together. This is a moving scene. He probably had tears streaming down his face as he said, Oh my children, why would we not go back to Bethel? Because God has been so faithful to us. Children, He's been so good to us. He's always heard our prayers. He's always been with us. He's never forsaken us. Why would we not go back and honor Him there? And so what do the children do? Do they despise their father's words? No, they listen. They pull off their earrings, they pull off their necklace, they take off their worldly garments. They take those filthy idols sitting in the corners of their houses, and they gather up their gold and silver, and they throw them in a heap, in a hole in the ground, under a terebinth tree on the hills of Shekel. Dead and buried to these idols. And they throw them there. And they bury them there. And they repent of their idolatry. And they turn and walk towards the house of God, Bethel, the house of God. That's where they go. And to make it even more wonderful, Jacob had just said how frightened he was of the nations, how frightened he was of their swords. And now God says, don't worry about that. Because look what I've done, I've caused a terror to come upon all the nations so that they won't harm you as you travel. God makes a way for us to keep our vows to Him and He blesses us when we do so. So brothers and sisters, what we see in verses 1 through 15 is this idea that God expects us to keep our vows to worship Him in the place to which we are accountable, where we are supposed to be. And when we do so, And when we do so, you may expect blessing from God. And that's where we are tonight. So we looked at the somewhat negative aspects of this last week. But here tonight in verses 6 through following, what we see is the absolute wonderful blessings. people of God, of being in the house of God, and particularly being in the worship of God. What does God have for us here? What does He have for you here? So, if you look with me at verse 6, Jacob came to Luz. Now, why does he call it Luz? Because he calls it Luz here because, you see, Jacob referred to this place as Bethel, the house of God. But the nations around who lived in this place called it Luz. And the word Luz in the original language means something like waywardness. Kind of ironic. It means something like waywardness or perversity, actually. It's not a great name. I don't think I would want to move my family and live in a city called perversity or waywardness. But some did, I guess. But anyway, the place was called Luz, but it is not its spiritual identity anymore. Jacob came to Luz, that is, in parentheses, Bethel, which is in the land of Canaan. He and all the people who were with him. And it says that he built an altar there and called the place El Bethel. Because there God had revealed himself when he fled from his brother. So I just want to make a couple of notes here. Notice that wherever Jacob goes and he builds an altar, this is a place of worship. This is where the gospel would be proclaimed to the house of Jacob, to God's people. Because when the lamb is slaughtered on the altar, when the blood is shed and the animal is burned on the altar, you see, this is the message that there is atonement made God's sacrifice is made and there God's people will be forgiven through the sacrifice. So this is gospel to the people when the altar is erected. And so he says that he built an altar and he called the place Bethel. But I wanted to notice that one little detail that we shouldn't pass up. It says that Jacob came to Luz, which is in the land of Canaan, he and all the people who were with him. Jacob brings his whole entire family to worship. This is a simple point, but it's a profound point. Because this is what God has called the heads of households to do and to be. To be spiritual leaders who call our families to worship the living God. And it's on us. as fathers, and they're single mothers. It's on the single mothers, but it's on God's people to bring their family, for those for whom they are responsible, to worship God. And that includes our little ones as well. Deuteronomy 29, verse 11. If you want to turn there with me, you can. But a reminder that when God calls His people, He calls all of His people. He calls His covenant people. And included in that number are our little ones, our children. Deuteronomy 29 is a covenant renewal. It is a time of worship for Israel. And they come to God at this place in verse 10 here. Moses speaking, you are standing today, all of you, before the Lord your God, the heads of your tribes, your elders, your officers, all the men of Israel, your little ones, your wives, and the sojourner who is in your camp, from the one who chops your wood to the one who draws your water, so that you may enter into the sworn covenant of the Lord your God, which the Lord your God is making with you today. This is a perfect summary of Christian worship in all ages. That God calls His people, all of their households, to enter into God's presence so that He may make His covenant with us again. That's what He did in Moses' day. That's what He did for Jacob. And that's, by the way, what He does for us. And part of it is this meal that sits before us. Here, we see Jacob and all of his household coming. He builds an altar. He wants his family to hear the gospel through the shed blood of the Lamb. He wants them to be reminded that Yahweh, the true God, has made provision for their sins to be taken away. The gospel. And then, there's this. Interesting. Verse 8. And Deborah, Rebecca's nurse, died. And she was buried under an oak below Bethel. So he called its name Alon Bakuth. And sometimes the Bible does things that you wonder and scratch your head and go, why did the Bible do that? Why does Moses, the author here, why does he include this line about Deborah? It seems like out of nowhere, it seems this sort of random detail, trivia. But I want to suggest to you that this is right in keeping with the context. Because what the passage is communicating to us is what a service of worship would have looked like for the Old Testament believer. And now we have a woman here who has just died. And they bury her, interestingly, in this place. So here they are, the altar is here. And Deborah, who is by this time, astonishingly, something probably like between 160 and 180 years old. She has been in the background of this story all these years. But this faithful nurse of Rebecca, who has been in this family for all of these years, has finally died. And she is a godly lady. And where do they bury her? They bury her in the place of worship. And so in a sense, what we're seeing here is this amazing sort of legacy of faith that has been left by this woman, has been handed down from Jacob's youth. And in a sense, you see this idea that God's people are called to be devoted to their God from cradle to the grave. God calls his worshipers to be worshipers from the cradle to the grave. Brothers and sisters, our little ones, our children, we are to call them to be worshipers of Christ from the beginning of their lives to the end of their lives, like Deborah. For all of their days, that they should never remember a time they weren't being encouraged to love the great Savior who laid down His life for them. That we don't encourage them to honor and trust this great God because He's been so faithful to us. And He calls us to His house to hear blessings spoken over them. From the cradle to the grave, we are called to be worshippers of God. This means, when we worship, we are glad to see little people in worship. We're glad to see children in worship. If they cry, so be it. It's okay. If they make some noise, it's okay. Now, obviously we don't want a full on screaming match going on during the service. We do have a nursery for that. However, that's rare. And they're usually pretty good. And you're gonna expect some wiggles. But how good is it for them to be in the house of their God? Why? Because He speaks blessings to them. Do they understand everything? No. I don't understand everything. You don't understand everything. But they understand something. And they see something. And they see profound things. As they see the table set. As they hear the preaching going on. As they see the adults listening faithfully to these sermons. They learn. They understand. They see the profundity of what we are doing. There's nothing on earth like this. From the cradle to the grave, like Deborah. And let me be buried in the house of God. And by the way, I have seen so many times funerals taking place in a funeral home. Now, not to knock the funeral home. I'm thankful for what they do. But where are the funerals in the church anymore? Where are the funerals? Where are the caskets on the last day of this person's time in church? The caskets that the funeral might be held in the place where they worshipped all of their lives, you see. We need to resurrect that. We need to bring that back. Because it's important. Like Deborah. We'll be cradled-to-grave worshippers. So, here we see the recipients of this covenant renewal service with Jacob and his household appearing before God. And God is faithful. Look at verse 9. God appears to them. That is what the reality of worship is. We appear before God and He appears to us. Verse 9, look with me here. God appeared to Jacob again. when he came from Paddan Aram." Stop there. Why does he say, when he came from Paddan Aram? That's a long time ago. That's seven years ago that he came from Paddan Aram. Why does he say it again? Because when he left Paddan Aram, chapter 31, Jacob should have gone straight from Paddan Aram to Bethel. Where did he go? He went to Shechem. And so he says, now when he came from Paddan Aram, he blessed him. What God is saying is, he is speaking as if chapter 34 never happened. Grace, I'm not remembering Shechem, Jacob anymore. I'm not remembering those seven long sinful years, Jacob. I'm not remembering your idolatrous ways, Jacob. I'm not remembering your cowardly fear of the nations or your money-grubbing ways, Jacob. I'm not going to remember that time that you set up a false altar in Shechem when you should have set up that altar in Bethel. Jacob, when you come from Paddan Aram, I will bless you." And that, verse 9, is what he does. graciously blesses His servant. And we need to hear this, because every single week, brothers and sisters, we sin. God blesses us. He tells us of His love on Sunday. Monday morning, we go back to our old ways. We go back to our old man. We go back to our Jacob ways, when we should be living like Israel. We sin. We break covenant with our God. We disobey Him again. And we need to hear God say, you know what? Your sins are forgiven. It's as if it never happened. You're forgiven. And more than that, you're blessed. What is blessing? Brothers and sisters, blessing is when God proclaims His love and favor on His people. And that's why at the end of every service, I raise my hands, speaking for the Lord Jesus Himself, and proclaim a blessing to you. Why? It's not because it just sounds cool and it's a neat way to end a service, to give you some chilly willies or shivers or whatever. We do this. So that you can know and you leave this place knowing that God loves you and his favor is upon you and he's with you like Jacob and he has committed himself like a groom to his bride. I will never forsake you. I love you. I lay down my life for you and I'm with you to the end. That's what the blessing is. And that's what the blessing is for Jacob as well. Verse 10. Let's look at the blessing here. They abound here. The blessings abound. They overflow here for Jacob. With all the depravity of chapter 34, this is only grace, you see. This is only goodness to this man and his family. Look at verse 10. God said to Jacob, your name is Jacob. Now this is odd language. Why? Because if you go back to chapter 32, You see that God changed His name all the way back there, seven years ago, to Israel. But if you notice, He hasn't been called Israel since. He's been living like, what? Jacob. He's been living in His old man ways. He's been living in His old flesh. He's been living like Jacob when He should be living like Israel. And God says, My son, remember who you are. Children, remember who you are. You're not Jacob anymore. You're Israel. Your name is new. Your identity is new. Your identity is in the God of Israel. Your identity is in the true and living God who loves you. Not in the ways of the world. Jacob means something like deceiver. Israel means struggles with God and by implication has overcome. And so he's saying your identity is in the God of grace who loves you. Not in your sins, but in God. Remember who you are. And when God renews covenant with His people, when He brings us to gather together, it's one of the main things that we do is we, through the Word of God, you're reminded who you are. Sons and daughters of God in Christ. That's your identity. Children of the Living God. Don't identify, young people, children, do not identify with the world. The world wants you to identify with Him. You will hear it in so many different ways. You are not of the world. You are of Christ. You are called to love Him and serve Him and trust Him. You belong to Him. He laid down His life for you. And He calls you to Himself to identify with Him. To be His people. You're citizens in His kingdom. And we need to stay in there by faith. We need to stay in His kingdom by faith. So, here God reminds Jacob of who He is. And then, even more, again, it keeps getting better. Verse 11, And God said to him, I am God Almighty. Be fruitful and multiply. A nation and a company of nations shall come from you, and kings shall come from your own body. Whoa! That's new. He hasn't heard that before. In fact, he hasn't heard these words of blessing. since chapter 28, 27 years ago. God blesses the servant. The covenant promises, the promises that are generational. He gave to Abraham, and then He gave to Abraham's son Isaac, and then He gave to Isaac's son, now Jacob. And He gives them again. You haven't lost the covenant promises, Jacob. And you see, this is good for us because sometimes when we sin, we think, oh, maybe does... Is God so angry with me that I've lost my blessing? Have I lost my chance? Have I messed up so bad this time that maybe God's gonna remove some of those blessings from me? No. For those who trust Him, you haven't lost them. Because you never earned them. You never did anything to earn them. They're given to you by grace. And you can't lose them by your sins. As long as you're trusting in Christ, you'll never lose the promised blessings. You'll never lose your inheritance. I had a friend once who came from a very wealthy family. He came from a family name that you would know. It's a household name. And he lived in this little... run down, I would call it a ramshackle house off of a campus when I was going to college and I lived in the same house as he did. I lived upstairs, he lived downstairs and it was a real dump, let me tell you. But this man, I became friends with him and he told me his story and he told me that around the table with all their butlers and maids and their fine china, he told his family that he wanted to go into the armed services, he wanted to be a soldier and they told him that They told him that they didn't think that was a proper thing for him to do in his stature and his family name and so forth. And they said, if you decide to go that route, that you'll lose the inheritance, the family inheritance. And so he said, well fine, so be it. And so he became a soldier. I had to admire him for that. And by the way, somehow they took that back and they gave them some of the inheritance anyway. But that's beside the point. The point is, you see, a worldly house, a worldly family would disinherit someone for their violations of the rules. But in God's household, We have violated God's covenant. We have broken His covenant. We have broken His commandments so many times. Why has God not removed the inheritance from us? Because we never earned it. The good son earned it. The faithful son, he earned it. He obtained it. He secured it. And He graciously has given it to His people who trust in His name. By faith, we obtain the inheritance, and it will not be taken from you. You may feast on this inheritance for this entirety of your life, and then you will enjoy it fully forever. Amen, right? Let's praise the Lord for that. This is the gospel. You didn't earn it. It's a gracious gift, and it's a glorious inheritance. And that's what Isaiah 58 is talking about, by the way. And he says, you'll feed on the inheritance of Jacob when you keep the Sabbath holy. Why? Because in the house of God, you're reminded of all that's yours. It's like going to a bank, and the bank clerk goes down the list and says, this is what is coming to you. Serious? Yeah, this is coming to you. And the mind reels. Brothers and sisters, God desires His people to appear before Him because He wants to appear before us. And you see, virtually all of our problems in life begin when we forget the gospel. And we fail to believe God's promises. We forget, number one, our standing in Him. We forget that we are in God by faith in Jesus Christ. And it's by Christ's merits alone. And we begin striving in our own ways, in our own righteousness, in our own works, you see. We forget our standing. We're justified by faith alone. We forget our identity. We forget that we're holy sons and daughters of the King of Kings. We forget this. We begin to think we're like the world again. We begin to act and live in the things of this world. You see, no. God reminds us who we are. We're sons and daughters of God himself. And we forget our inheritance. We start... making our expectations and hopes and dreams and the wrong things, even good things, we make to be priority over the things of God. We forget our inheritance. We're not feeding on the inheritance of Jacob as much as we sometimes feed on the passing pleasures of this world. And God says that's all wrong. Well, let's keep going here. We could spend more time, but let's press on. Verse 13, we see something else. We see this worship service come to a close. God went up. Just as real as he came down, God went up. Now I take this to mean that God visibly appeared before Jacob. He saw him. And the patriarch saw Yahweh on occasion. I don't know what he looked like. He probably looked like a man. We don't know his appearance, his visage. We have no details of that. But he appeared before him. He saw him. And now he goes up. I'm not sure how he went up exactly. Perhaps he just went into the air. Perhaps he vanished. We don't know. We're not told. But he went up. And so that reminds us there is an opening to these things. There is a closing in this earthly age. There is an opening to worship. There is a closing to worship. We are closing worship today as we speak right now. This is the close of this day of worship. Just as real as he came down this morning, he is going up again. And he is with you right now. And then Jacob commemorates this place. Again, he does similar things that he did in chapter 28. Which reminds you, there's again a pattern here developing of worship. This is a house of God, after all. And it says that in verse 14, Jacob set up a pillar in the place where he had spoken with him. A pillar of stone. And he poured out a drink offering on it and poured oil on it. So Jacob called the name of the place where God had spoken with him, Bethel. Notice the last word of this passage is that word. Don't forget that word. This is the house of God. This is the place of worship. But why does Jacob do these odd things? He sets up a pillar of stone. This is symbolic. Stone is, as you know, children. How long does stone usually last? Does stone wear out very quickly? Stone lasts a long time. Stone is virtually forever. That's the point. He sets up a pillar of stone. This is a perpetual place of worship. This is the place where God's people should worship day in, day out for the rest of history. Now, do we worship in that place literally? No, but we worship in that place spiritually, in the house of God, forever. And he pours out a drink offering. A drink offering is an interesting sacrifice. If you go and see the drink offering later on in Israel's history, the drink offering was basically a goblet of wine that they poured on the ground by the altar. And you go, what's with that? That seems kind of wasteful. In a sense, that's the point. Because the drink offering's poured out onto the ground, who drinks it? God drinks it. You see, it's for God's sake that wine is poured out. And you might say to yourself, when you worship God week in, week out, what's the point? Sometimes it seems like a waste to the world. They look upon what we do and they think, what are they doing? They could be doing so many other things with their Sundays. They could be doing so many other things on Sunday nights. You could be doing so many other fun things, right? You could be watching some football game. How glorious. You could be fishing somewhere. Wow, you can never do that in the other six days. The world looks at us and says, you're crazy. Look at the time you're wasting. And it's a drink offering to the Lord. We pour it out. You might think it's a waste, but He is pleased with it. He loves it. That's why Paul said, I pour out my life like a drink offering. You might think it's a waste for me to sit in this jail, but God doesn't. It's an offering to Him. That's our worship. And then he pours oil, by the way, and that's a symbol of the Spirit in the Old Testament. Oil is always a picture of the Spirit. You see, we worship in spirit and truth. Spirit must bless, or else we cannot see God. And see, this, Jacob shows us, is the perpetuity of covenant worship. The details may change, the elements may look different. However, brothers and sisters, what we do is the essence of what Jacob has done. We meet in the house of God and His blessings abound for us who are in Christ Jesus. Young people, children, a special word for you. As you remember this story of Jacob, as you think about your life ahead, when you grow and you get older, remember that God loves to see you in worship. He wants you to be with Him in worship. He wants to speak to you in worship. And someday, God willing, when He gives you children, you will be called to bring your house, your family, to meet with God again. Just as He was faithful to you, He'll be faithful to them. and then your children's children, and their children's children, until the Lord Jesus comes back. And then we'll all worship in His house, in glory forever. Amen. Let's pray. Our God in heaven, we thank You for this passage. It reminds us, O Lord, that what we do, O God, is significant. Maybe not to the eyes of the world, but, O God, to You. It is the most precious thing to gather with Your people and to bless them. We thank you, Father, for this passage. We believe it. We believe it is relevant for us, and we pray that we might take its lessons to heart and to love your holy day, to love your house, to love your worship, and most of all, to love you and the glorious gospel that you give to us in Christ. Thank you for forgiving our sins. Thank you for the meal that we are about to partake that reminds us again that you have not left us and that you will be with us forever. In Jesus' name. Amen.