It is always a joy, not always easy, but always a joy to be up here. It is always a delight when God uses me to be in his word to bring it forth to you. I say it's not always easy because it's usually teaching me a lesson. And sometimes he waits till the very morning to teach it. So, I'm hoping and been praying that when I get to the section that he's really been teaching me, I'll actually be able to walk through it. But I know this, we serve an awesome God. And all of us know that, most of us in this room know that we serve a God who is all powerful and good. And so good morning. I want to extend a warm welcome on this very chilly, but you know, Amanda and I are slightly disappointed because we don't have the 10 inches of snow. I know many of you are going, I'm glad we don't. We got too much rain as it is. But I want to invite, welcome all of you. And I see we've got some visitors here and I'm glad to see y'all. But I'm glad to see all of y'all here. Now, starting next Saturday, I'm going to be taking a week off from work. I'm looking forward to not only the time away from work, but just the time to relax. Time not to have a schedule, to be somewhere at a certain point, But just to be able to, on certain days, to sleep in. I know for those who are sleep hygienists, that's not a good thing, but I'm going to sleep in anyway. I know I plan, I'm hoping, to get some yard work done, and I know for many of you, yard work is not relaxing, but to me it is. And I'm hoping to get some reading done, maybe just whatever, but to have some downtime. Maybe even spend some time, a little bit longer time, out at Middleburg Road with a moment of hope. But I'm looking forward to having some downtime. And I know many of us like that. We look forward to a mini vacation, whether it's a day, a couple of days, a week, maybe even longer than that. We also look forward to a time of celebration where we get to be with others that we know. In fact, we lit the second candle this morning in the Advent wreath, and we're looking forward to a celebration. Well, I hope we are. Well, what we're gonna look at this morning in our text is we're actually gonna see that God has commanded both of these, a time off, as well as a time of joyous celebration. But before we look at today's text, let me open us up in prayer. Thank you, Lord, as believers, that we're not in hell, experiencing your unrestrained wrath against us. It's what we all deserve. We deserve nothing less than your wrath. I thank you, Lord, for putting us in your Son, Christ Jesus, our Lord. You started that work by putting us there. You maintain that work, and you will finish that work. I thank you, Lord, for putting in our hearts a desire to be in your word, to hear your truth taught, to live out a life worthy of the calling with which we have been called, and you get all the praise and glory for doing it. And as we come again this morning to hear your word preached, may you speak not only through me, but to each of us. Give us ears and minds to listen. and then hearts to obey. We thank you, Holy Spirit, that you reside in every believer, and we ask that you would move powerfully this morning, powerfully to show us any unconfessed sin that we have not dealt with, that even now we would, when you do that, repent. And thank you, Lord Jesus, for saving us and cleansing us from all unrighteousness. I pray that those here who do not know you as Lord and Savior, Lord Jesus, that you would move and remove their stone hearts and put hearts of flesh, hearts that turn to you and that you would save them from your wrath and give them life. And I ask all of these things in your matchless name, Lord Jesus. Amen. After taking a short break, Dennis has been preaching the last couple of sermons, this morning we're going to return back to the book of Exodus. So, if you haven't already, please open your Bibles to Exodus chapter 23. Now, before the break, Pastor Mike was working his way through the section of Exodus most commonly known as case law. Chapters 21 through 23 are basically a summation of the case laws. It is dealing with the outworking of the Ten Words, or as we know them as the Ten Commandments. He has been expounding this section of God's Word and helping us to understand how to apply it in our modern context, which has been very helpful. I don't know about you, but it's been helpful to kind of take a look at some of the statements about treating slaves and other things. It's been really good to be there. Well this morning, we're gonna take a look at, and we're gonna continue that study by looking at verses 10 through 19 in Exodus chapter 23. So listen with me and follow as I read God's word. Exodus 23, starting in verse 10. And I'm reading from the New American Standard Version. And you shall sow your land for six years and gather in its yield. But on the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow so that the needy of your people may eat, and whatever they leave the beasts of the field may eat. You are to do the same with your vineyard and your olive grove. Six days you are to do your work, but on the seventh day you shall cease from labor in order that your ox and your donkey may rest. the son of your female slave as well as your stranger may refresh themselves. Now concerning everything which I have said to you, be on your guard and do not mention the name of other gods, nor let them be heard from your mouth. Three times a year you shall celebrate a feast to me. You shall observe the feast of unleavened bread. For seven days you are to eat unleavened bread as I have commanded you at the appointed time in the month of Aviv. For in it you came out of Egypt, and none shall appear before me empty-handed. Also you shall observe the feast of the harvest of the firstfruits of your labors. From what you sow in the field also the feast of the ingathering at the end of the year when you gather in the fruit of your labors from the field. Three times a year all your males shall appear before the Lord God. You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread, nor is the fat of my feast to remain overnight until morning. You shall bring the choice fruits of your soil into the house of the Lord your God. You are not to boil a kid in the milk of its mother. Don't worry, children, that is not referring to you. This morning, we're gonna be taking a look at the text in under three headings. Rest, rejoice, and trust. Starting with rest, verses 10 through 12, you know, we see this right there. You shall sow your land for six years and gather its yield, but on the seventh year you shall let it rest. Six days you are to do your work, but on the seventh day you shall cease. So God wants people to rest, and it's tied back to Exodus chapter 20, the fourth command. You shall keep the Sabbath. But God is expounding the Sabbath from just that last day of the week to the seventh year of a seven-day cycle, a seven-year cycle. Later, we would also then see that we're to count out seven Sabbath years to have the year of Jubilee. So all of this ties right back to this whole notion that God has said about rest. Do you think it's important? Many in the United States would probably argue no, rest is not that important, especially if you're a college student. You know, rest is overrated. We don't need any of it, you know? Stay up all night trying to parse out the verbs and everything else that you gotta do. Now, God says it's highly important to make it a part of not only His command, but here to start expounding it just a little bit more. It's pretty straightforward. You're to take a year off. Alyssa's down here smiling big. A year off from work. Verse 11 is actually a summary though of what God says in Leviticus chapter 25 verses one through seven. I'm gonna read it for us because I want us to see the intensity of this. And this is given at Mount Sinai. The Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai saying, speak to the people of Israel and say to them, when you come into the land that I give you, the land shall keep a Sabbath to the Lord. For six years, you shall sow your field. For six years, you shall prune your vineyards and gather in its fruit. But in the seventh year, there shall be a Sabbath, a solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath to the Lord. You shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. You shall not reap what grows itself in your harvest or gather the grapes of your undressed vines. It shall be a year of solemn rest for the land. The Sabbath of the land shall provide food for you, for yourself, and for your male and female slaves, and for your hired servant, and the sojourner who lives with you, and for your cattle, and for the wild animals that are in your land. All its yield shall be for food. a year unto the Lord. Now, that's not a big deal. Okay, we'll take off. We've got Kmart down the road, or Walmart, or Kroger, so for us to take a year off is not that big of a deal. But when your whole livelihood is dependent on what you grow that year, think about that for a moment. God is telling Israel, you who are an agrarian society overall, take a year off. Don't work your land. Leave it alone. And by the way, it's not just that you don't work your land, it's a rest unto me. We always… Mike preached when he preached on the fourth commandment that the Sabbath day, so that one day out of the week, was a rest unto the Lord. That's easy for us as people to think about because we can say, okay, a rest. Do you think that creation worships God? In Romans chapter 9 and 10, Paul talks about how creation groans under the weight of our sin. But also when Jesus was entering into Jerusalem, what did he say about the rocks? If y'all don't worship me, they will. My dog annoyed the mess out of me last night because she was doing exactly what she's designed to do. be a dog, and she wanted attention. I had to quickly remind myself, she is worshiping God right now by being a dog. When I hear a raven, most of us are annoyed when we hear ravens or crows because they sound pretty bad, like my singing, right Rob? Rob knows it. He gives me a hard time because I usually sit next to him in the deacon meeting, and when I belt out, he's cringing. But that raven, when it squawks, is worshiping God because it's doing exactly its design to do. So when the land lies unworked, Guess what's going on? It's a Sabbath unto the Lord. It's a solemn rest for the land. Now, any agrarian or farmer will tell you that, hey, sometimes it's a good idea to let the land rest from constantly producing. But guess what? That's a secondary thing about this whole thing. That's just a benefit. It is actually designed to worship God by saying, let it rest. Give it a break. We know, you know, I mean, think about this. One day out of a week to take a break. A farmer is not going to be, oh yeah, that's easy enough to do. When my whole livelihood is dependent on what I'm putting down on the ground, taking a year off? I want everybody in the room to think about that for a second. Take a year off from your job, no pay. And not only do you not get any actual pay coming in, you only get to take whatever grows after the animals take and trample. Think about that too, because he said the wild animals, not just your ox and donkey. So God calls them to take and give a rest. As I said, it's to be unto the Lord. We're to stop doing, they were to stop doing for arrest for the Lord. It was unto Him. It was not, and by the way, we don't know what they were supposed to do during that year. But when we take a look at what God says in the Sabbath out of the fourth command, that it was to be unto Him. My year off from tilling my land was to be a vacation unto God. It was to worship Him. Now, we mentioned earlier that it was for the poor. for the animals, I want you to take a look at over in, we're not going to flip there, but let me read it to you, Leviticus 19 verses 9 and 10. This is what God says about the poor. He says, now when you reap the harvest of your land, so in other words, those six years that you're working, As you reap that land, you're not to reap to the very corners of your field, neither shall you gather the gleanings of your harvest, nor shall you glean your vineyard, nor shall you gather the fallen fruit of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the needy and for the stranger. I am the Lord your God." So every year that we're to work, and we're to till our land, and we're to dress our vineyards, were to leave some of it for the poor. I'm not to go in and go, okay guys, let's go in and make sure we get all the way to the corners, all the way around. And indeed, when harvesting olive trees, you're actually to beat those things. I would not want to be a tree being beaten. Anyway, you're to leave some of it for the poor. So God, over these six years, is saying, hey, by the way, leave it for the poor. You leave some of it. You don't go to the very corners. In the seventh year, notice what God said about the Sabbath. What was it for? Not only was it for the rest of the land, it was so that the poor among you could go in and gather. So that paycheck that comes to you every two weeks or however often you get paid, it goes into your checking account for the poor to come over and take some. But not only does it come into that checking account for the poor to have some, as I said, it's also for the animals to come over. So that ox you got over in the manger, you know, that really big one that can eat most everything, It's for him. It's for your cows, for your sheep. It's also for the wild goats that roam the land. Now, any of you, how many gardeners do I have in here? I know I've got, I know one. I was about to say Beverly, I know is a gardener. Do I have any other gardeners in the room yet, Charlie? What would happen, and I'm asking for a feedback right now, what would happen, Charlie, if you left your garden alone for a year? Weeds. Weeds. What would happen if you left it alone, not only for the weeds, but allowed animals into it? So think about a farmer now is being told, you're not to protect your property. You're to let it rest. It was for the beast, for the fields. It was for the poor, because why? God cares for all of His creation. He blessed you with a field so that you could bless others. He blessed them with a field so you could bless others. But I want you to notice something here, too. We're going to shift into now verse 12, talking about I'm sorry, verse 11, talking about the Sabbath, no, I was right, verse 12, the Sabbath being on the seventh day. Notice the reason that was given here on that weekly Sabbath. It was couched in being refreshed. The day off, yes, is to be under the Lord, but it is a day for you to be refreshed in. to be reinvigorated to do the work that God calls you for the rest of the six days. But that's one of three reasons that God gives about the Sabbath. Over in Exodus chapter 20, God couches it in creation. He worked for six days, took the seventh day off. Over in Deuteronomy chapter 5 where he re-talks about the Ten Commandments, he couches it in the Exodus and says, just as you were set free as a slave, so too are you to take that day off, all of it being unto Him. So how does this apply to us? Well, everybody should take a year off. I know some of you, Charlie's already said, that would be great. No. Because as I was reminded when I was meeting with a friend here not too long ago, I asked the question, well, what about believers in countries where they can't take the day off? So how does that apply to us? How does this truth, because again, remember, Paul tells us over in Timothy that all of Scripture is applicable to us. That includes the Old Testament law. For the child of God, it also includes that. So how does this apply? Well, one, first and foremost, the Sabbath day and the Sabbath year all point to something far greater. Even Hebrews chapter 4, it talks about the believer's rest in Christ. The Sabbath day points to the finished work of Christ on the cross, and we are in Christ. We are to strive to enter into that rest. We are to strive to be in Christ. I cease from my labors because the labor was completed by Christ and Christ alone. But then, so that's done. My eternal rest is complete in Christ. It's done. It's finished. There's no more to be done there because Christ finished it. I'm going to say a practical note, but that wouldn't be right because salvation is practical. Looking at, though, we should also be setting aside a day of rest for ourselves. One of the things that the fall has done to us has made us either workaholics or try to avoid all work as possible. Some of us work way too much because that's when we think we're going to find something. Some of us don't want to work at all. But really what it is, is we need a day off. We need downtime. I was joking about students not sleeping. Trust me, when I did my master's, I joked about it. And yeah, there were nights I was pulling two and three hour night sleeps. No. It's not by God's design. We need sleep. But we also need time off from work. But not just for ourselves, though. Mike rightly pointed out from Exodus 20 that that Sabbath day was to be unto the Lord. It was to be a day off from my normal activities, yes, where I can do it, but it was to be unto the Lord. Now, most of us can't afford to take a year off from work, even you retired folks. But when we go on vacation, if God grants us that, who are you doing it unto? Who's your vacation unto? Is your vacation unto you or is it unto the Lord? Remember, it's a Sabbath for us to take it when we can take a vacation, when God grants that ability to take a vacation from our job or when you retire. Who is it unto? Is it, you know, again, is it unto yourself or is it unto God? Now, what does that mean? That we can't, because again, the text doesn't tell us what that looks like. So does it mean I can't go to the beach or can't go to the mountains or can't go to carowinds or can't go somewhere? No. But it does mean that when you go, do it for the Lord's glory. I know that whenever I went traveling, I found it hard to want to keep my personal devotions because, yeah, you know, you're not in the same setting. I don't have my massive Bible or whatever else. It's just me and whatever little Bible that I brought with me. And sometimes it's hard. But when we see the Sabbath year, We see God saying, it's unto me. So is it important to you to do this unto me? It's not saying don't go have fun. It is saying have it unto me. Have rest unto me. Make me still the priority. So we see that God is able to give us this rest, and it is for Him, but we also know that not everybody can take those vacation times, and so how do we do that? When God does give us a moment of breathing, as it were, rest unto Him. It's unto His glory that we're to rest. And also make it a priority. What does that look like though? As a sidebar real quick, Jesus was weary and he sat down at the well. Who walked up? A woman in need. He rested by ministering. Because when the disciples got back, they were like, Jesus, you gotta eat. He goes, I've already eaten. And everybody looks at each other going, did you get him food? And he's like, no. It was doing my father's will that fed me. So our rest sometimes can take the form of ministering to those around us. But not only that, just a real quick word on verse 13, because it seems sort of out of place here. It really isn't because it is a Sabbath rest unto the Lord and we're not to invoke other gods. I'm not to say, well, you know, Moloch doesn't require me to take a day off. He doesn't require me to take a year off and let animals run through my yard. No. In Ephesians, Paul tells us to not let even sin be named among us. In other words, not even on our tongue. When you take that Sabbath rest, it's unto me, don't even speak favorably of the false gods. They're not even to be named among you. But what are we to do? So we got this rest and it's good, but God also calls us to rejoice. And we see that with the festivals that he talks about here, starting in verse 14 through 19, he talks, he, again, in sum here, he's summarizing the three feasts that he is going to give more information on over in the book of Leviticus. Mike, we need to preach through Leviticus one of these days. Everybody else in the audience is going, no. It's God's word. But he institutes these three festivals, and they're all instituted unto him. The first one being the Passover. And most of us are familiar with the Passover. It's a reminder of what God did in the Exodus coming out of the land of Egypt. And remember in the beginning stages of the book, Exodus, Israel is under slavery in Egypt. God runs through nine plagues, Yes, there are 10, I'm getting to the 10th one here in a second. Runs through nine plagues, and then comes to that 10th one and says that you are to slaughter a lamb, you're to take the blood and put it on the doorpost of your houses, and anybody who has that blood on the doorpost of his houses will be spared from the angel of death. By the way, God's judgment on sinners. If you had that blood, you're saved from his wrath. So he institutes as a memorial, as a remembrance, as a pointing back, but an appointing forward about the Passover. It was to be a seven-day feast. Kind of nice, a whole week off to party under the Lord. to rejoice. The next one that he does is the Feast of Harvest. It's also known as the Feast of Booths and we see this the more information is given in Leviticus chapter 23 verses 34 through 44. I'm not going to read it but if you want to take a look at all that God has ordained and required for that feast that's a place to look at it. but it provides information about that feast. It was a celebration of what God has provided for in the fields, and you're to take a portion of that and give it back to the Lord in worship, in rejoicing at his hand that he's given to us. For all those folks who say that Christianity is a dull religion, they don't know God. Because God is a God of rejoicing. He's a God who wants his people to rejoice and to sing joyfully. It's always a pleasure to stand up here and hear y'all sing. Because back there, it's hard to hear that. But up here, it is wonderful when the hearts and minds are singing to God's glory. Think about what heaven will be like for all who are there worshiping. And no, Rob, there won't be any me's. So we're to rejoice. But that was not only that feast, and that was an eight-day feast. The feast of ingathering, the last one that he talks about, is also a feast that's celebrated at the end of the year, but it is a feast to celebrate again God's provision from the fields to take again back to the Lord and offering a portion of what He has given to us and rejoicing at what He has given. It's an eight-day feast. So now you're up to 23 days of feasting. How would you like that in a year? 23 days out of the whole 365 days is for feasting Yes, eating a lot of food, but rejoicing always. So God is a God who wants us to rejoice. Now, interestingly enough, pay attention, because in verse 14, he says, three times a year, you shall celebrate a feast to me. So there's the command. But then over in 17, he says, three times a year, all your males shall appear before the Lord God. He doesn't say where here, because they're still in the beginning stages of marching through the desert. In Deuteronomy, he goes on to say, all your males are to appear before me where I make my name dwell. Eventually, that would be in Jerusalem. Now, I thought about using a PowerPoint, so some of you guys who are all PowerPoint savvy, you'd be proud of me, but I chose not to, so I know you're disappointed. I was gonna put up a map of Israel so that you would see You're talking from the north to the south. Everybody, all males, are to congregate in Jerusalem. Now when it says all males, that doesn't just mean you ladies and kids get to stay home. It usually means that everybody moves to Jerusalem. So everybody from the north and from the south, Think about all of South Carolina moving to Columbia. Actually, no, let's make that a little bit, you know. Everybody from South Carolina moving to Columbia for 23 days. We already have a strained bus system. Think about adding extra million or two people. But that's what God was saying. All your males are to appear before me. All your males are to come before me." So this would make, by the way, so you're thinking about Jerusalem, it's 23 days in city. You're marching from Greenville to Columbia on foot, by the way. Or from Charleston, or from Clemson, or Anderson, or wherever else, on foot. So that 23-day, you know, seven-day for Passover, eight for booths, eight for in-gathering. If you lived in northern Israel, add about another week on the front end and a week on the back end. So anywhere from three to four weeks for each trip. I never think of, before I started studying this, before when we went to Deuteronomy, I never thought about that until, sat there and looked at that going, wait a minute, if all males are to come down, that's not just a, that's not like us running to Atlanta one day in the car, we'll drive down there for four hours, spend eight hours and then drive back for four hours. That's us walking to Atlanta. spend the day or two or seven, and then come back. So there's a cost involved. All your land, and to whatever degree, all your animals are unprotected. So, leave the keys in the door, and walk away for three weeks. And I'll put the keys in the car, too. Again, pretty intense. Now, we might think about, yeah, well, Chris, you just said everybody's got to go down, so it's not going to be that big of a deal. Well, it's not a big of a deal if you live near Jerusalem. It's not a big of a deal if you don't live near the border of Moab, your enemy. It's not a big of a deal if you don't live near the southern part of Israel, near Egypt, your enemy. So what's the big thing here? Focus, all three of these festivals were to focus on God. They were to worship God and to express thanksgiving for his provisions. John 1, Verse 29 and verse 36 tells us Christ is the Passover lamb. Christ is that lamb that would be slaughtered for the sins of those who believe in Him. That Passover meal pointed forward to Christ. John calls Him the Lamb of God, the Lamb who would take away the sins of the world. Christ is that fulfillment of the festivals. Now, real quick, Matthew chapter 6 talks about provisions. Jesus says, don't be anxious for what you will eat or wear. God knows you need them. Seek His kingdom and His righteousness first. I had Charlie read Philippians 4 because it starts off, first off, with rejoicing. Rejoicing at what? God's provision. It also dealt with contentment, which we'll see here in a moment. See how that plays out here in a moment. While we do not have to gather three times a year, We do gather weekly as believers to rejoice together. Do you come to church to rejoice corporately with one another about God's provisions? We also come together to rejoice to show our thankfulness to God by giving a portion of our income back to God through his local body. These gatherings, the giving of the tithe was to present the tithe to the priests. Guess who got to eat? The priests. So when God calls us together to rejoice, we're to give part of what He has given to us back to God, and then God gives it to His people for their needs. So for us, part of it is to come weekly to give our tithes, to give a portion of what we give, but it's also to give to God through a variety of other means, not just the local church, but to local ministries and to non-local ministries like missionaries. Now, switching gears, I jokingly said, but it's true, verse 19 does not deal with kids like Hannah being boiled in mom's milk, it deals with a small baby goat being boiled in his mother's milk. What does this mean? Depends on who you read. I read one commentator yesterday who said that the notion that it is a Canaanite ritual was not provable and therefore we don't know. But then I read a couple of other guys, who I think are more wise, who said it is a Canaanite ritual. It probably is. There's a Eucharistic text that refers to this notion of boiling a kid in milk. There is one of the commentators, two guys that I read, two alive guys, and then I read two dead guys, all four of them pretty much said the same thing, that this was a fertility rite. that what they're doing by doing this is to ensure their next year's harvest. And God is saying, don't do it. Now, interestingly enough, Kyle and Dalich had a pretty good take on this, but I still lean towards the… Canaanite magical spell for land fertility, but Colin Dalich said this, it is a possible contempt of the relationship which God has established and sanctified between parent and young, thus subverting the divine ordinances. And I couldn't help but wonder, abortion. I, the mom, take my right to do what I want fertility-wise, and part of that is to offer up my child. But God says don't do it. Now, whatever the reason why, we may not know. Israel might not have known either, but guess what they had to do? It was trust, which is where we're going to go now. What's implied in all nine or all ten of these verses is trust. Why did I harp on the extended time away from home? Why did I harp on the unprotectedness of the house? Why did I harp on leaving your land fallow and letting animals and people run amuck in your fields? Because at the very core of what God is doing here is trust. Will you obey and trust me to take care of you? Will you trust me to take the Sabbath rest? Will you trust me with your land? Who, by the way, I'm giving the produce and giving the growth. Will you trust me to take care of your needs? Will you trust me to rejoice in me and to leave your lands that I gave you to come and worship me as I prescribe? Will you trust? It always centers back on that trust. Will I trust that God, by the way, just as another side thing here, When you don't plant for that first year, that year, you're only eating what's there, you have to wait another year before you have a full harvest. That's two years of trust. Will I trust you? God actually starts to prepare them for this by doing manna. Will you trust me to provide for you from food that you don't know what it is? Six days a week you're to go out and you're to, while the wandering is going on, six days a week you're to go out and you're to get an omur of manna, none more than what you need to feed for that day. And on the sixth day, you're to grab enough for two days. Are you going to trust? So he's preparing them for that year stuff. Are you going to trust? Their borders are unprotected. We're talking a deep trust. It's unprotected from a horizontal perspective. There's a deep trust of God's provision here. Yet Israel would fail miserably at trusting God. In something as simple as just getting an omar of food every day, there were many who would go out or a number who would go out and try and collect more than what they needed. And it would then the next day be rotten. There are others who violated the Sabbath and went out and would try and collect when there was none. They would lean on their own understanding and thus failed. As far as we know, Israel never obeyed the year Sabbath. So too, we can't even keep the simplest of God's commands. We fail at just even the basics of God's commands. And in Romans chapter 6 verse 23, it tells us that that disobedience deserves God's unmitigated, unrestrained wrath. An eternal separation from God. That's what our disobedience, that's what everybody's disobedience deserves because God is holy. And when we don't trust Because that's ultimately what it's about. I don't trust you, God. I don't trust how you do things. I would rather lean on my understanding rather than yours. I'll lean on the understanding that only ends at the tip of my nose rather than on the eternal God who has all things ordained. We deserve God's wrath. But Jesus perfectly obeyed God's truth. Matthew chapter 6 verse 33 says, "'Seek ye first God's kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.' As I mentioned earlier, the woman at the well How many of us, if we sat down and somebody that just, you know, we all have those people that we would just really not rather talk to sometimes. For some of us, a lot of times. And what does Jesus do? Who is weary, hungry, tired, well, He's weary. What does He do? He ministers to a woman. who is in desperate need of salvation, and he is resting in God's provision for him. Jesus tells a disciple when he said, I want to follow you, Jesus says, foxes have holes, birds have nests, son of man has no place to lay his head. What was he saying in that moment? There's a cost, but he was also saying, I rest fully in my God's provision. I trust implicitly in my God's provision for my needs. What does Matthew 6, 33 say to all believers, to all people? Don't worry about your food. Oh, don't worry about your clothes. Trust implicitly in God's provision and obey Him. Do what He calls you to do, even when it doesn't make sense. But God, I'm hungry. Yeah, I know. But God, I got bills. I know. Are you going to trust me? Jesus did it perfectly. We will never do it perfectly on this side of heaven. That's why we come to this table today, because we celebrate the Passover Lamb, who perfectly obeyed and trusted His Father, trusted Him to do that which we could never do. We have the greater need than food and water and clothing. Our greater need is the fact that we are alienated from God for all eternity because of our sin and because of the blood of Christ. Because of Christ's perfect obedience and those who look to Him savingly, we are credited with His righteousness, with His perfection. We can rest and rejoice and trust in His provision. So let me pray, and then we're going to come to the table, and this is where I get to hand it off to Mike, but I'm going to pray. And as we come to the table, it is a table for believers only. This is a table to remind us of our sin, as I was so reminded this morning. I kept looking at my navel all morning and all afternoon yesterday, all day yesterday. What are one of the beautiful things that God did this morning? Chris, you're going to preach on trust. Who are you looking to right now? Lord, I look to you, my God and my Savior, my rock and my Redeemer. You have washed us clean for those in your Son. For those outside of your Son, we beg you to move this morning to open their eyes, open their hearts, show them their deadness, show them their need for salvation. But for those of us who know you, may that we rest and rejoice in the beauty of what you have done. And may that we trust in Your goodness. And Father, as we take just a moment right now to come before You silently, I pray again that You would search us, O God, that You would show us our sin. But more than that, You would show us Christ and the beauty of our Savior, of our Lord and our God. I ask these things in Jesus' name, and I do pray that, ask that the men who will help at the table to come forward. Say what?