We come again to part three of our introduction to our summer series in 1 Peter. We've been looking at the first two verses in 1 Peter. Now this will be the third week. You may wonder how could Mike have possibly squeezed three weeks out of the two verses. Don't worry, we're not going to spend three weeks on every two verses in 1 Peter. But we do remember that In these verses, in the introduction to 1 Peter, is a setting forth of major principles to which Peter comes back again and again. This is saying some foundational things for us, and the foundation, as we've seen before, is in how we see ourselves and how Peter wants them to see themselves. It is in their understanding of their identity. as Christians, the people to whom he's writing. He's writing to churches, and we might remind ourselves, to churches in areas that were largely the ministry of Paul the Apostle, where Paul founded churches. Many scholars, and I agree with them, believe that Peter is writing to these churches because Paul has sort of delegated to Peter responsibility over these churches as he is ministering in the western part of the Roman Empire, perhaps even going to Spain. tradition tells us that he did. And while he is gone, Peter is writing to encourage these churches, the setting being that they are experiencing persecution. One thing that we said very early when we started to look at Peter, but you may have forgotten, this is, 1 Peter is probably written in the early to mid-60s. AD, and probably during or close to the reign of Emperor Nero. And we know that there was intense persecution of Christians in Rome There was local persecution, but there was also a sort of general persecution as people in the empire took their cue from the attitude of Nero to Christians. Nero, you might remember, blamed the burning of Rome on Christians when the more likely scenario was that he had set Rome on fire. And these people are experiencing intense persecution. And so Peter writes to encourage them and to help them to understand how they can face these trials faithfully. And what we've seen over the past two weeks is that the foundation of that adequate facing of trials is their proper understanding of their identity, of who they are. So the question that we've been looking at and will conclude looking at today is, how should Christians think of themselves? Now, we've already seen two points from this. The first point in the first week, the second in the second week. Let's just review briefly the ground that we've covered. We saw in verse 1 that Christians should see themselves as Jews. And I've forgotten to turn my microphone on. Now, there it is. Okay. Can you hear me? Okay. should see themselves as Jews. We see that in the two concepts here, that they are elect and that they are exiles of the dispersion. These are ways that the Bible, throughout the Bible, refers to the people of Israel. And who is Israel? We said the way that we define Israel is the covenant people. What makes a Jew a Jew? It's not ethnicity. It's not even, in a certain way of thinking, religion. It is a covenant relationship. That's what constitutes Israel. And so, in that sense, we as physical Gentiles, most of us, I don't know if we have any Any ethnic Jews here today? I don't believe so. But as Gentiles, the scripture tells us we are part of this covenant community. We have been grafted in. We are part of the same body, not a separate body. Israel and the church are not two separate redemptive communities. There's one redemptive community. And so all of the heritage and the promises and the prophecies of the Old Testament apply to us. They are given to us. We have a share. That's our heritage. We are part of Israel, and we are heirs to those promises to Israel. And the Old Testament is written to us as the people of God, just because it was written to Israel, and we are part of that. And that's very important, because it adds a whole lot to what God has to say to us and what applies to us. And it adds understanding to us because if we try to come to the New Testament apart from seeing the Old Testament as written to us, then we can't understand the New Testament properly. And I've done this with many people. I haven't done it yet as we've been talking about these things, but it's important that we see that the lion's share if, I've done this with people before, If this much of the Bible is the New Testament and this much of the Bible is the Old Testament, then what becomes clear to us is that if the Old Testament is written to us, the lion's share and indeed the foundation, all the categories of understanding that we have for understanding God's revelation to us are in the Old Testament. And so our posture, how we think of ourselves, how we think of theology is enriched when we understand that all of God's Word is God's Word to us. And we are a part of that people. And so Peter's going to build on this, and there are things that Peter has to say to us that make no sense unless we understand that we are part of Israel. Secondly, then we saw last week that Christians should see themselves as elect, and this is largely expanded upon in verse 2, where Peter speaks of election in Trinitarian terms. We are elect, we are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, Remember we saw that foreknowledge is foreloving. That's the sense of it. for knowledge of God the Father. In the sanctification of the Spirit, sanctification has to do with holiness. We've talked about holiness today. Sanctification is just the verbal form of that. Sanctification is making something holy, that is, setting it apart. It's the Spirit that sets us apart. We are chosen in the sanctification of the Spirit. The Spirit is the one that applies God's work and makes us Christians, as He gives us the gift of faith and regenerates us, gives us spiritual life so that as we were blind, now we see. Why? Because we're given spiritual life. When we were dead, we were made alive, as Paul says in Ephesians. And so, in the sanctification of the Spirit, and we are chosen for for something related to the Son. And we saw those two things, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by His blood. And there we could, if we're talking in theological terms, we could say we're chosen for sanctification and for justification. We are chosen for the application of Christ's work. Christ's work is not indiscriminate. It is discriminant. We are chosen for sprinkling by His blood. But we are also chosen for obedience to Jesus Christ. And this is very important that we see that our salvation is not something that is just for our comfort alone. It has a purpose, and that purpose is that we might be conformed to the law of God, that we might obey Jesus Christ. Because this is the purpose of our salvation, that we might be conformed to the image of God, and that image of God is perfectly summed up in who Jesus Christ is, because He is the perfect image of God. And so when we see ourselves, our election in these terms, our election then has to do with the fullness of our salvation as it is mediated to us through the triune God, each person of the triune God, cooperating fully with each other in a full salvation. And so we need to see ourselves as this way. We are loved in a special way. We are loved as the bride of Christ. We are loved like a wife, and that's special. But then, thirdly, and this is what we want to explore more deeply today, that Christians should see themselves as saints. Christians should see themselves as saints. And where we see this in these first two verses is in the concept of being exiles of the dispersion. We are exiles. Now, we noted that this was a way of referring to a literal exile, a literal dispersion of national Israel. Israel had been dispersed in a couple of different invasions, the Northern Kingdom's invasion in 724, and then the Southern Kingdom of Judah's invasion in 585 or 586 BC. first to Assyria, being carried to Assyria, then to Babylon. But the practice of both Assyria and Babylon was to scatter the people so as to consolidate their rule and eliminate any stability in the people that they had conquered. So they repopulated people in different areas and they brought other conquered people into Israel and Judah and planted them there. And so the people couldn't really get their footing. This was the practice of both Assyria and Babylon. Babylon really borrowed that from Assyria, that practice. So they were scattered. And that was something that literally happened to the exiles. But we noted that most scholars see that this is not just written to Jews or to Jewish Christians. It's written to primarily Gentiles, Gentile Christians. And so why does he refer to them in this way? It's not just to identify them as part of Israel. It is because they are to see themselves as exiles. And what do we mean by exiles? What's an exile? Well, I want us to think of it in terms of a couple of different terms that are used by Peter elsewhere in this book, and we'll come back to this again. Again, he's introducing concepts for us here. So, I like to think of this in terms of a couple of different concepts, and what unites both of these concepts is the concept of holiness. Because a saint, saint just means sanctified one. It's a sort of a contraction for sanctified one. A sanctified one, one who is set apart or has been set apart, is a saint. And it's important for us to understand that all Christians are saints. And there are branches of the church that think a saint is a special kind of Christian. We hear people say, well, what does he think? Does he think he's a saint? Like a saint is some special class of Christian, a super Christian. And actually in the theology of the Roman Catholic Church, that's what a saint is. A saint is a person who has done more good works They've accumulated more merit than the demerit that they've accumulated because of their sin, and so they're not going to have to spend any time in purgatory, but their merit is kind of stored up in this treasury of merit, and it can be dispensed to other people. It's kind of like a commodity. It can be dispensed to other people. And a saint is somebody who's kind of on the plus side of the ledger. And that's completely wrong. There's nothing scriptural about that concept. None of us can merit anything before God in and of ourselves because we're all behind the eight ball because we're sinners. And the slightest sin deserves hell. And so there's no way that a saint is someone who merits more than they deserve punishment. No, and a saint isn't a special class. A saint isn't someone, a Christian, who can do miracles because they're in a special class. No, a saint is a description of everyone who is a Christian, because we are all set apart unto God. We are all saints. The Bible refers to all Christians as saints. But what does that mean? It's to be set apart, to be separate, to be distinct, to be different. But the Bible, and especially in Peter, talks about that in certain ways. And this word exiles is really important. Because an exile is someone who's been cast out, and they've been cast away from their home. And that's the point. And so there are a couple of words in 1 Peter that Peter uses to develop this concept. And so I think it's appropriate for us to introduce them today. First, Peter uses the term aliens. He says, you're aliens. Now, we know what an alien is. We don't use that term very much today because it's not very politically correct. But an alien is someone who is not a citizen. An alien is someone, we talk about illegal aliens. If you don't come to this country legally, you don't come through a legal process, then you're an illegal alien. Some people are offended by that, and I don't want to get into that, but I do want you to notice that what that means is that you are not officially a part of this place. In other words, you don't belong here. That's what an alien is. Now, saying you don't belong here, you may have business here temporarily, but this is not your home. Your home is somewhere else. And in a certain sense, you don't fit here. And so when you're an alien, you are a stranger. You're different. You're different in that way. This is not your home. And so, we see this, we see this concept, we see that Jesus is the one who really introduces this concept to us. When Jesus was talking to his disciples, do you remember when he said, I'm not of this world, and you're not of this world. because you belong to me now, I have taken," and he says in his high priestly prayer in John 17 when he's talking to the Bible, he says, I have taken them out of the world. And they're not of the world any more than I'm of the world. And when Jesus was talking to them in his upper room discourse before he went to the cross, he said, he said, the world has hated me and because it's hated me, it will hate you because you are identified with me. If the world has hated me, it will hate you. The first time I ever read through Proverbs, one of the things that was striking to me was how it talked about people who gather together and plan to do evil things, whether it's to steal something or whether it's to murder someone or these types of things. If you've read the first part of Proverbs, you know what I'm talking about. And one of the things that was striking to me is how it pointed out how when you're around these people, they think it's strange that you don't want to join with them in what they're doing. If you show that you're different, if you show you're different, then they will very quickly become hostile to you. if you don't participate with them in this. And the New Testament talks about the same thing. Paul says about people who perpetrate sin, they think it's strange that you don't participate with them in the same dissipation. They think it's strange. And yet, you're not to participate with them. You're to be different. I remember reading a story about a company where that became very productive, and very successful because of certain workers who went against the union. And the union was saying, hey, you know, we've bargained that we do this much work for this much pay in this much amount of time. But there were some workers who really worked hard and did their job well, and were more productive. And the effect of that was it made everybody else look bad. And so the other people around them became very resentful of these people, but they made the company much more prosperous, and the end result of that was everybody got a raise. But they didn't like it. Because, hey, you're making me look bad. Because you're doing what I ought to be doing, but I'm not doing. Doing it. See, this is the way it works. If you become a person who is really oriented to the way God has created his world to work and you begin to function that way, you become a light that shines on the darkness around you and exposes it. This is one of the ways, this is part of what it means for Christians to be light. We're to be different. But being different means that we're aliens. We're not a part. And this is difficult because we want to be a part. And we want to be a part because this tendency toward unity is something that's built into us. We want unity. We remember how at the Tower of Babel, there was one language and one people. And what are they doing? They're gathering together, but they're gathering together not in a healthy way. They're gathering together against the Lord. And the way you see that is they're building a tower to the heavens in their own, that reaches to the heavens in their own strength. We're going to get to heaven ourselves. We don't need God to bring us to heaven. We're going to build a tower in our own strength and ourselves, which reaches to the heavens. And God looks down and he says, if they do this, as one people, they do this, then nothing will be impossible for them. Well, he doesn't mean that literally they'll be omnipotent like he's omnipotent. Of course he doesn't mean that. He's talking about the way they're thinking of themselves, and that's what we're talking about today. How do they think of themselves? Do they have a creature confidence that leads them away from a proper relationship to God, which is dependence upon Him, understanding their need of Him, understanding that their next breath comes from Him, that their next heartbeat comes from Him, that the fact that their atoms are all sticking together comes from Him, that if He wasn't constantly doing that, that they would just cease to exist. They don't realize that. And so God wants them to realize that. So what does he do? He scatters them. He breaks up their unity. And Paul comments on this when he's preaching at Morris Hill in Athens. And he says, God determined the exact places where people live. When did he do that? He did it at Babel when he scattered and the people moved out and they settled in different places on the earth. Why did he do that? Paul says, he did this so that people might perhaps reach out for him and find him. Though he is not far from any of us. For in him we live and move and have our being. See, God's constantly sustaining people, but what God wanted to do in that was he wanted to stimulate their sense of need of him. And one way to do that was to break up this creaturely confidence that comes from this being unified. I'm with other people and they're with me in this. And it's being with each other in an opposition to God. Now, God loves unity. And God calls us to unity. You remember in the book of Ephesians, in chapter 4, he says he's bringing all things to unity in Christ. We come to unity in the faith. This is the goal of our growth. We grow as each part does its work, as the body of Christ, as the people of God, equipped by ministers of the Word. grow and minister to each other and build up the body of Christ until what? Until we all reach unity. But unity in what? What kind of unity? He says unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God. Why is that important? It's important because the only Unity that is really a blessing is a unity that does not come at the expense of truth. You see, it has to be a unity in the truth. It has to be unity in the faith, in what we believe, in the knowledge of the Son of God. liberal Christians, and I say liberal, modernist Christians, theologically liberal Christians, have missed this. They have pursued unity at the expense of truth. If we disagree, that's bad. So what we'll do if we disagree with each other is we'll just get rid of our theological distinctives. We'll just say theology is not important. It doesn't matter. Because what matters is being together. What matters is being together in one body. But that's not what matters most if we have to sacrifice truth to achieve it. Because if we sacrifice the truth to achieve it, what happens? We become unified, but unified to what end? Unified under what banner? Unified to do what? Inevitably, it's unified for a perverted cause, for perverted reasons. We see this today in our society. We need to come together. We hear people saying to us, we need to come together. But coming together under what banner? On what terms? And we see Christians today at a time when what we most need is people who are bold and willing to say the truth. But what we see all around us is a tendency to be afraid to tell the truth. Because if we're afraid, if we tell the truth, the spirit of the age will shout us down. And this is where our call to be aliens, our call to be holy, our call to be different becomes so very important. Because to be a Christian is to be willing to be, if necessary, the only person who stands in the gap and tells the truth. The only person who's willing to say, the emperor has no clothes, when everyone around is saying, what beautiful clothes, when everybody knows the emperor's naked. The Christian has to be the one who will stand alone, who will be different for the sake of truth. And so we're aliens. And we have to realize that that's what we're called to be in the world. We're called to be saints. We're called to be set apart. We're called to be different. We're not called to conform. We're not called for everybody to think we're great guys. For everybody to think, wow, you're wonderful. What did Jesus say? Beware when all men speak well of you. He said that for a reason. Because if you're faithful, there are going to be a lot of people who aren't going to speak well of you. And they're not going to speak well of you precisely because you're different. And because you say things that offend them. And if you tell the truth, there will always be people who are offended because they don't like the truth. So we're to be aliens. But then, notice that we're also, if you read 1 Peter, and I'm hoping some of you have already read through it in one sitting, we're to be sojourners. What's a sojourner? A sojourner is a person who's passing through. A sojourner is a person who's on a journey. And he's in a place, but again, this isn't home. He's come from somewhere, he's going to somewhere, and in between, he's here. And whenever I think about this concept, I think about the Gadarene demoniac. You remember the Gadarene demoniac? Jesus goes to the region of the Gerasenes and he meets a man who is possessed by a legion of demons. And he heals the man, he sends the legions into a herd of pigs, the pigs rush into the water, they're drowned. And it's interesting because the people of the town come and they see this man who had terrorized them and broken chains. They couldn't hold him with chains and they've been afraid of him. And now he's healed and he's in his right mind. And they look at it and you'd think they'd say, Jesus, thank you. You've removed this terror from us. But that's not what it says. It says they're filled with fear. And they say, please go away. Because we'd be comfortable with our sin. It may be sin, but it's our sin. And when Jesus comes into a life, he always rearranges the furniture. We like the furniture like it is. And so they refrain. Hey, this is, he's a demon-possessed man, but he's our demon-possessed man. We're used to it. Don't shake up our lives, Jesus. Please leave." But there's one man who doesn't want Jesus to leave, and the fact that Jesus is leaving makes him sad, and that's the demoniac himself, who's no longer a demoniac. And he says, please let me go with you. Why is that? Because he realizes that the region of the Gerasenes is no longer his home. He's not comfortable with this place. Jesus, let me go with you." And what does Jesus say to him? He says, no, no, stay here and tell everyone what God has done for you. So he gave him a mission. He said, you're here and you're here for a reason. I'm leaving you here And we know, he doesn't say it in the story, but we know, there's more to the story, he's going to be with Jesus forever. But temporarily, he's here and he has a reason to be here, he has a mission, he has a purpose. It is to make disciples by being a witness to what God has done for him and to point others to the One. So really, he should see himself as a sojourner, he's just passing through this place. This is not his home. And let me tell you, I would say that in America today, this is one of the top three, you know, I can think of other things, but this is one of the top three needs of Christians in America today, to see themselves as sojourners. He said, this is not my home. I'm going somewhere else. Because what is our tendency? We cling to what we have. We want this to be our home. We don't hold the blessings that God has given us loosely. But we cling to them because this is my home, this is my property, this is my place. My identity is tied up with fear. And we don't see ourselves as tied up with heaven, with glory, with what's to come. But Jesus says, no, you're to see yourself as a sojourner. This life is not what you orient your life to. Remember what we read in the assurance of pardon? Set your minds on things above. You don't consider the stuff that you can accumulate in this life the point of your life. It's not. You're going to lose it all. It's all going to be gone. You realize that? And if you orient your life to what you achieve in this life or what you accumulate in this life, then you're missing the point of life. And you're not seeing yourself as a sojourner. John Piper wrote a book, Don't Waste Your Life, and the theme of that book is largely this theme. You waste your life if you put all your eggs in the basket of this life. You need to put your eggs in the basket of the eternal. You need to invest your time and your resources and your efforts and your energy And what is to come? And some people would say, well, that's just pie in the sky, by and by. Well, you know what? Yeah, it is. It is. But that's what God calls us to focus on. What is to come? Our hope. He calls it our hope. You know, Some of you may have seen the movie Heaven Can Wait. It's a remake of a movie that was an earlier movie called Here Comes Mr. Jordan. It was a 70s movie. It came out in the 70s. Some of you may not have seen it. But in the movie, a man is wrongly taken to heaven. He's an athlete and he gets into a wreck on his bicycle. But it turns out that he would have, because he's an athlete, he would have avoided the wreck and he would have saved. But the angel who was in charge just didn't want him to go through that pain. So he takes him out of his body before he actually has the wreck and his body gets in the wreck then. But he's wrongly taken before his time. And so the rest of the movie is all about how do we make this right? And of course, the theology is horrible because God doesn't make mistakes and neither do his messengers. But we'll leave that aside for a second. And so it's all about, okay, how do we how do we make this right? And so they put him in a body. They give him another body with a guy who is supposed it was supposed to be murdered. And he wants to get to the Super Bowl because he's an athlete. He's a really good quarterback. And he trains this body. He gets it off. And he tries out for the Los Angeles Rams. And everybody thinks he's crazy. He's a businessman. But he ends up being pretty good. And he wins a starting job. And everybody's really surprised. And he gets him to the Super Bowl. But then right before he's about to play in the Super Bowl, the angel and his supervisor come to him and they say, you can't use this body anymore. And in the meantime, he's falling in love with this girl that's falling in love with him and this body. And so, they say, you can't use this body anymore. And I remember these words, you don't fit. You don't fit. You can't stay here. And he says, but she loves me. And I'm getting to the Super Bowl. No, you must abide by what is written, Joe. His name's Joe. And so, he gets killed. And as he's walking, his soul is walking with the angels, they say, don't worry, Joe, there's a plan. There's always a plan. And I'm not gonna tell you how it works out, you rent the movie, it's a fun, entertaining movie. But the point is, he didn't fit. He doesn't fit there, because his destiny is somewhere else. And no matter, but he's clinging to things. He's clinging to his aspiration. He's clinging to this woman that he's fallen in love with. He's clinging to all these things. But really, really, heaven is what he needs to be focused on. And his destiny, his destiny in terms of the plan. God has a plan. And listen folks, God has a plan for each one of you. And there's an end, there's a terminus to that plan, and it's in heaven. It's in glory. And as you go through this life and as you experience the vicissitudes and the trials and the difficulties of this life, that's what needs to be in the forefront of your mind. I am headed. I'm headed across the Jordan. I'm headed to the promised land. That's what needs to be in your mind. Because that's what carries you through. And that's what gives you a goal. That's what gives you the proper goal. There's another movie that came out in the 90s. Some of you may have seen this. I really recommend this movie. Again, theology is not perfect, but there's a lot of profound truth in it. It's called Meet Joe Black. Have you ever seen that movie? Meet Joe Black. And I won't tell the story of the movie, it'll take too long, but I will say this. It's Death, this guy meets Death. And Death lets him hang around for a while because Death wants to experience life. Because Death is used to giving people death and that's his function, but he wants to figure out what it means to live for a while. And so he lets this guy hang around as his guide. He's a very successful businessman, he's a good man, a good guide, so Death picks him to do this. But he knows eventually he's gonna have to leave, and so there's a lot to it, a lot of cool things that happen in the movie. But at the end, death is about to escort him into presumably heaven, they don't talk about it. And they're looking at this, they're looking together, they're standing looking at this 65th birthday party that his daughter has made for him. And they're looking at this fireworks show, and they're about to walk, Wherever they're going, he's about to take him and he's about to die. Death's about to escort him into the afterlife. And they're standing there looking, and Death has fallen in love with a woman and he doesn't want to leave her. She's fallen in love with him. And the guy who's about to die looks at him. They're looking at all the people watching the fireworks. They're looking at his daughter. And he looks at him and says, it's hard to let go, isn't it? And death looks at him and says, yes it is. I remember watching that scene and thinking, it is hard to let go. But the time to let go isn't when we die. The time to let go is right now. Because if you let go now, If you orient yourself to eternity, to glory, now, then when death comes, it won't be that hard. Because you'll be going home. And you'll know it. You see, we're sojourners. This isn't our home. We don't cling to anything here. Heaven is our home. Being with God is our home. And heaven isn't just being disembodied, sitting up in a cloud somewhere. Earth is going to be heaven when God makes a new heavens and earth. And we'll be in physical bodies, but what will make it heaven is we'll be with God forever and ever without sin and with each other. That's where we're headed. That's home. Set your mind on things above, not on earthly things. That's the call. You are a saint. You are set apart from this world. You're not a part of it. That's your identity. So be who you are. And I'll ask those who are serving at the table to come forward now. You know, as you take and you eat this sacrament, that's part of what it means. And that's why we don't believe in private communion. We don't believe that you can, you know, get together some bread and buy some wine that you like better than the kind we use and have private communion at your house. No, you don't do that because this sacrament is for the people of God together. And part of what is symbolized is our unity, because unity is important to God, our unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God by virtue of our union with Christ. with the crucified and risen Christ. And so part of what the significance of this is, as you come forward and you take the bread and you take the wine, you're taking it with other people who are, you see them doing that, they're united to Christ, you're united to Christ, so guess what? Part of your identity is you're one in Christ. You're one body. You're part of that one body. And so that's what I'd like for you to think about today, as you come and you eat and drink. Yes, this symbolizes our union with Christ. He becomes part of us. And the reality of that, that he is part of us, that we're in him, he is in us. is just as real as this bread becoming a part of our bodies, this wine becoming a part of our bodies as we take it into ourselves. We are one with Christ in just as real a way as that. It seals that reality to us. But it also seals to us that we're one with each other. So as you eat and drink, don't look down. Don't be sober. Rejoice. And look at each other. and experience our oneness together, our fellowship together with Him as the body of Christ. We're all, all of us who have faith in Him, we're all part of that. That's our destiny. That's our identity. So as you come and eat, revel in Him. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you. Thank you for your word today. Thank you for what it means to us and the challenge that it presents to us. Because as we're challenged, we're strengthened. So Father, as we eat and drink today, as we enjoy this sacrament that you have given to us, Use it to change us. Use it as a means of grace. Set it apart. Set these elements apart from an ordinary use. Make them holy in this way, so that they do a holy work in us. Make us more like you, because what is symbolized and sealed to us is our oneness with Christ, our union with Him, from which all of your blessings flow, and all of your promises become yea and amen in Him. Do this for us, we pray, with thanksgiving, in Jesus' name. Amen. And this blessing is only for those who have faith. Faith is the key to receiving all the blessings of God. If you're not a believer in Jesus Christ, I warn you, do not come and eat and drink, lest you eat and drink judgment to yourself. If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, then now testify. What is it that you believe? I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into hell. The third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From there he will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen. The night in which Jesus was betrayed, he took bread. When he had given thanks, as we already have in his name, he broke it and he said, this is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me. After supper, he took the cup. And he said, this cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for many for the remission of sins. Do this in remembrance of me. He said, all of you drink of it. So now, ministering in his name, I invite you to the table of the Lord, in which He offers Himself to us. He can offer us nothing greater than that. When God loves us, He gives Himself totally. And so I invite you to the table of the Lord and I invite you to come and feed upon Him, feed upon Christ in your hearts by faith with thanksgiving.