Corinthians 15, 1 Corinthians chapter 15, and we will read verses 21 and 22. If you would stand for the reading of God's Word, please. Hear now the reading of God's holy, inerrant, inspired word. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. Let's pray. Father, we are grateful that we have this opportunity on a Sunday morning, this Lord's Day, to be together. To sing praises to you. To lift our voices in that manner. To lift our hearts in prayer. Joining together to bring our needs before you. And opening your word. where we learn of truth, where we learn why it is we live in a world of death and where we can find life. And so I pray that by your Spirit in these next few minutes you would minister to us that we might understand why the death, that we might see clearly where we find the life. For we pray it in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. We are gathered together in church this morning, and so I imagine that if I were to ask, who is Jesus, that you would say He's the Son of God. And, of course, we would expect to find that in this context. But probably even if you were to ask that question on Friday night of people milling around that we are giving cookies to, that we are giving gospel tracks to and whatnot, they would probably say as well that He is the Son of God. They might say other things. And who knows what exactly they might mean by saying He's the Son of God, but they would recognize, or at least those who have some sort of religious background, that Jesus is the Son of God. But in the context we find in the Gospels, in the first century Jewish context, that would not have been an answer that would have been given. Luke writes his gospel for a number of reasons to lay out the life of Christ and some of its significance to make clear to the readers that what people have heard about Christ, what has been taught in the church is actually based in reality. And so Luke does his research and interviews witnesses and puts that all together as he talks about in Luke 1. Part of what He is trying to convince us of, part of what He is trying to demonstrate is that Jesus is the Son of God. And so, we're going to look at a number of passages briefly this morning. And if you would open to Luke chapter 2, we're going to discuss a number of these passages and what the argument means, why Luke puts them where he does, and particularly we want to focus on the genealogy that we find in Luke's gospel, why he has it there, why he places it where he does at the end of chapter 3, etc. And so, in order to understand what is going on here in this gospel, Normally during the time of year that we call Advent, the Christmas season, we look at the different Christmas stories that we find in the different gospels, but I want to focus today on this genealogy and what we can learn from it, but we must put it in its own context. And so we're gonna see, first of all, that Luke is intent that we learn that Jesus is the Son of God. He does that in a number of ways. If you look at the end of chapter 2, you see the section there about Jesus as a boy in the temple. And his family used to go down every year during the Feast of the Passover. And you know the story that they were there for a number of days. And then when they left, they left Jesus behind by accident. They thought Jesus was with them. In fact, he was not. And you remember that whole story. They go and they search for him. And they finally find him. And they find him in the temple. And he's talking with the rabbis. And he's answering questions. And he's asking questions. In other words, He is, in a manner of speaking, a peer with those rabbis, which is fascinating when you think about the fact that He's 12 years old. But in verse 49, when His parents finally find Him, Jesus said to them, "'Why were you looking for Me? Did you not know that I must be in My Father's house?' In other words, He's making a claim about who his father is, which is interesting when you recognize he's saying this to his parents. But his parents, of course, didn't understand what he was saying when he called the temple, my father's house. But it seems pretty clear to me that he's saying, God is my father. I am in my father's house. And so that's an interesting story and an interesting conclusion that we can draw from that. And then the very next passage that we move on to, there in Luke chapter three is about John the Baptist and him preparing the way, and he does so by baptizing people who come to him. Many were coming to him, a number, most people, in fact, were coming to him from those surrounding regions. Many were being baptized and listening to him preach and whatnot, and then we read what we see there in verse 21 of chapter three. Now when all the people were baptized and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heavens were opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove and a voice came from heaven You are my beloved son. With you, I am well pleased. The father himself, in this very next section, refers to Jesus as his beloved son. So we've got a couple of witnesses, a couple of lines of evidence, a couple of indications already that Jesus is the Son of God. One more I want to draw our attention to, and that is in chapter 4. We're not going to work through the temptations of Jesus, but you recognize what's going on here. We read in verse 1 that Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan, that is from his baptism, and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for 40 days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those days. And when they were ended, he was hungry. So right after his baptism, right after he comes up out of the Jordan, the Spirit leads him into the wilderness. He's being tempted. He's being tempted by the devil. And these temptations are very specific, they're very intentional, and it's very powerful if you can imagine. You and I don't require being tempted by the devil. Any old tempter will do for you and for me, right? But here we've got the devil himself who is tempting Jesus. And I want you to notice what we see in verse 3. if you are the Son of God, command these stones to become bread." In other words, the point of contention is whether Jesus is the Son of God. The devil wants to attack him at that point. He wants to tempt him in regard to that topic. In other words, we might say that in a backhanded fashion here, we have the testimony of the devil that Jesus is the Son of God. So, Luke starts off in chapters 2 and 3 and 4, really drilling down, homing in on this topic that Jesus is the Son of God. And right in between all of these passages, these different ways of arguing, these different ways of making the point that Jesus is the Son of God, we find the genealogy in chapter 3, verses 23 through 38. Now, this genealogy, I don't know if you actually read it when you read through your Bible. I know, and this isn't a quiz, and I'm not looking down on someone who says, oh, a genealogy, and then goes right to the end and keeps on reading. You should try and read through. You'll learn some things as you pay attention to the genealogies, but perhaps as you're reading the story to your kids during Advent season, and you're reading the different nativity stories and all of that kind of stuff, and you probably skip the genealogies, right? First of all, you don't want your kids laughing that you can't pronounce the names. I don't really like to be laughed at by my children. Second of all, they don't really pay all that much attention to it, right? But what I want us to do is focus in for just a moment on the genealogy. And in this genealogy, we're not gonna read it. You'll notice I didn't read that as our opening passage. We're not gonna read it all together, but Luke is trying to accomplish something. This is holy Scripture that is here before us, preserved for us. Every bit of it is inspired. Every bit of it is profitable for teaching, reproved for correction and for training in righteousness, and that includes the genealogy. It may not be readily available to us. We might not go here for our morning devotions and come away with some strong-pointed action point for our day from this genealogy, but we do want to look at it this morning. And in order to understand it, what I want you to do is keep your hand here in Luke chapter 3 and turn back to Matthew chapter 1. Again, we're not going to work through these in detail, but I want us to see some aspects of the genealogies that when we compare the two together, we can kind of understand what Luke is getting at here in his genealogy. Now, as an aside, and I don't want to spend too much time on this, but as an aside, you will notice that Luke's genealogy and Matthew's are different. Particularly, if you look at Matthew 1 and verse 6, we see Jesse, the father of David the king, and David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah. Now, you know that story. All of that just popped into your mind by reading the genealogy. By the way, that's one of the benefits of genealogies is they do a quick review of history in your mind. You know that story. So he traces the genealogy from David to Solomon." Well, if you look over at Luke chapter 3 and verse 31, you'll see that he's doing it a different direction. So, if you look at the end of verse 31, he says, the son of David, who is the son of David? Look before it, Nathan. In other words, Matthew goes from David to Solomon. Luke goes from David to Nathan, a different son. And the genealogies are different from that point on. In other words, from David to the present, they are different. And some people will use this to argue that, see, Scripture isn't inspired or it's not inerrant because those genealogies are different and the Christian tries to defend those. Well, one defense that has been given through the years is that Matthew is presenting Joseph's genealogy and Luke is presenting Mary's genealogy. Right? Both would be relevant. Both have something to do with our topic, but I think that's odd in that Luke doesn't mention Mary in the genealogy, and so probably that's not the direction it's going. I think maybe a better explanation is that Matthew is presenting a particular lineage. In other words, Matthew is presenting Jesus' actual physical descent, who His ancestors are by birth, while Luke is giving his legal, royal line of succession. I think maybe that is the way that is going. I don't know if that's the case. I think I may have said that backwards, actually. I'm in Matthew 1, verse 6. I'm trying not to spend time on this, and by doing so, I'm not doing a great job of it. I'm sorry. David was the father of Solomon, the wife of Uriah. We trace the lineage from David through Solomon, who was actually the king that followed after David. In other words, that's the royal succession. So Matthew is presenting the royal succession, whereas Luke is doing something different in verse 31 of chapter 3, the son of Malia, the son of Menah, the son of Matathah, the son of Nathan, the son of David. In other words, perhaps Luke is presenting the actual physical genealogy, not the list of kings leading up to and culminating in Jesus. That's not ultimately what I want to talk about but there are ways to think about those different genealogies that a genealogy in the ancient world had a particular purpose and there were certain ways that they could be presented that might be different. And so a modern person looking at a genealogy in Luke 3 and comparing it to a genealogy in Matthew 1 sees differences and it causes us problems. Whereas a first century Jewish reader looks at it and says, oh, okay, I get what he's doing. That's not a problem, right? It's not an attack on its inerrancy or anything like that. But when we compare Matthew's genealogy and we compare it to Luke's, we're going to notice just a couple of things, two things I want us to pay attention to. First of all, Matthew begins in the past. Look at verse 2 of Matthew 1. was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob. In other words, Matthew begins at a point in the past with Abraham and works his way towards the present, towards Jesus. So the genealogy runs from past to present or to Jesus. Whereas Luke, turn over to Luke chapter 3, Jesus, when He began His ministry, was about 30 years of age, being the son, as was supposed, of Joseph, the son of Heli, the son of Mathath, etc. Luke begins in the present, in Jesus' day, and works backwards. That's interesting. That's something that's different right there. Luke is drawing our attention to the past so that we will feel the full force of what he's saying. In other words, Jesus stands at one end of the genealogy. in Luke chapter 3, who stands at the other end? Look at verse 38. We're having worked backwards from Jesus into the past. Verse 38, the son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God. At the other end of the genealogy stands Adam. Now, do you remember Matthew had Abraham on the other end? Luke has. It goes all the way back to Adam. In other words, Luke wants us to have Adam in our mind when we think about what Jesus is doing. Matthew, at least in his genealogy, wants us to be thinking about Abraham. and Jesus' connection with Abraham and all the promises made to Abraham, and Abraham as the father of the nation of Israel, and all of that. That's what Matthew is doing. Luke wants us to go all the way back past Abraham and to be thinking about Adam, to be thinking about what Adam has done. So when we think of this genealogy in Luke, Luke wants us to be thinking about Adam. That'll become significant in a moment. The second thing I want us to notice, the differences between these two, is where the genealogies are placed in the gospel. If you were writing a story of Jesus' life and ministry, you would probably start with the genealogy, like Matthew does, putting it at the very beginning, establishing Jesus' credentials in that sense, and then telling a story. That would make sense, right? that you'd even probably put it in the prologue, right? You'd put it at the very beginning of the story. You'd want to know that kind of history, and that's not what Luke does. Luke begins his story, and it's almost as if he gets, you know, three and a half chapters into it, and he realizes, oh, yeah, I probably should talk about who this Jesus is, right? But this is inspired Scripture. This isn't, you know, a ninth grade student trying to write his first essay for his teacher, right? Luke knows what he's doing. So why is it that Matthew begins his gospel with the genealogy? More to the point, why doesn't Luke do that? He locates it in chapter 3. He does that because it's part of the argument that Luke is making. Jesus has already called God His Father. The voice from heaven confirmed that during the baptism. And then after this moment, after this genealogy is given, chapter 4, we saw the temptation where the devil confirmed in his own way that Jesus is the Son of God. And now, right in the midst of all that, we have the genealogy laying it out in another fashion. In other words, it starts in verse 23 with Jesus, works its way backward. all the way through that lineage until we get to verse 38 where it concludes with, he's the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God. So not only is he connecting us with Adam, he wants to plant in our minds something about the relationship between Adam and God. He wants us to have that in our minds when we think about this genealogy. that Adam is a son of God also. In a different way, but he is a son of God. And here's the point I think Luke is trying to make. That Jesus is Not only Son of God, He's going to make that point a number of times and we can't miss that point. That's a central thing. What I think He's trying to do here is that Jesus is the Son of God and the last Adam. He wants us to think all the way back to that relationship that existed in the beginning between Adam and God. He wants us to have that in mind when we think about what Jesus is accomplishing. He traced his genealogy all the way back to Adam so that we would think about Adam, and then he points out that Adam was also a son of God. Now, how was Adam a son of God? Well, of course, God created him. God took dust, formed the dust, fashioned the dust into Adam, and then breathed His own life into him. And so, there's a special relationship that way, but it's more than that. Adam is a son of God in a covenantal sense because God gave instructions to Adam. that were different than instructions He gave to anyone or anything else. God entered into a covenant relationship with Adam at the very beginning, and thus, Adam himself is a son of God in that covenantal sense. So we want to look finally here at Jesus, the last Adam. Adam, the first man, we spent a while preaching through Genesis. This is fresh on everybody's mind, right? And it's about to be the new year, and so probably many of you will start rereading the Bible again, and you'll start in Genesis 1, and you'll encounter this in just a couple of weeks, right? But we want to think back of what we know about Adam. He's the first man fashioned by God from dust. God breathes life into him. And Adam was created and placed in the garden. And if you will keep your fingers here in Luke chapter 3 and go all the way back to Genesis chapter 2, I want us to note first of all verse 7 there of Genesis chapter 2. God was very specifically involved. in particularly creating man, creating Adam. And then placing him in the garden, he brings all the animals and you know the whole story. And then Eve enters the picture, she's created as well. And what do we see in verse 16? The Lord God commanded the man saying, You may surely eat of every tree in the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat. For in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die." There's this tree, the knowledge of good and evil, and from its fruit Adam is not to eat. He is free to eat. He's encouraged to eat from the fruit of every other tree in the garden. There's abundant provision. God has provided abundantly for him. He's hardly limited him at all. He's limited him in this one way, do not eat of the fruit of that tree. That's a prohibition. And what will happen if Adam eats of that fruit? He will surely die. In other words, and we've looked at this at various times, God is establishing a covenant relationship with Adam, and thus Adam is bound to obey God as he was as the creature anyway, but there's a promise, which is the flip side of the threat, The threat is, if you eat this, you will die. The promise is, if you will obey me, you will have life. Eternal life will be given to you. Not just the life that you breathe now, but a greater life will be yours if you will obey me in this. That's covenant language. So there we have that prohibition, don't eat of the fruit of that tree. And you turn the page and you look at chapter three and you see how Adam ultimately falls guilty to this. He takes of this fruit and he eats it ultimately and thus plunges all of his family, all of those who are in Adam, all of his progeny, plunged into death, sin, misery. having become liable to God's judgment. That's at the other end of the line. That's at the other end of the genealogy. Luke wants us to have that in mind when he tells the story. He lists out from Jesus all the way back to Adam so that we will remember particularly that story, Adam the son of God. And we remember that Adam who stood in our place representing us with his behavior or in his obedience or disobedience, with the consequences that come to him, he represented all those who were in him because it wasn't just Adam that died. It wasn't just Adam and Eve that died, it was their children and their grandchildren, all the way down to you and me in this world in which we see death. stemming from that sin of Adam when he broke covenant with God. And here Luke is calling to our attention that not only is Jesus the son of God, he's the son of God in connection with Adam. He's the last Adam, he's another Adam, he's another one who stands there to represent us before God. This explains the language of Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 and verse 22 where Paul says, in Adam all die. Because of what Adam did, all die. That's why we see death around us. develop it even more fully in Romans 5 and verse 12, sin came into the world through one man, that is through Adam obviously, and death through sin and so death spread to all men because all sinned. Adam was representing us in his behavior. He was not only an example for us, he was our representative, he was our federal head. God had entered into a covenant with Adam and with all who would come from Adam, and Adam broke that covenant. And Luke wants to take our attention all the way back there so that we will have in mind when we're thinking about Jesus, that we will have in mind that Adam represented humanity and his temptation and ultimate sin and death. And connected at the other end of that genealogy is Jesus. What Luke is saying in his own way is the same thing Paul says in Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15 and what John says throughout the Gospel of John. What he's saying here is that Jesus is representing His people in a new covenant. Jesus, when He's facing the temptation, is not only personally Himself as a private person being tempted. He's being tempted as a representative on behalf of other people. When he goes through the baptism, which takes place before that, he's not just being baptized as a private person. He's being baptized as a covenant representative of all of those who will have faith in him. He's the representative of a new people. When we see the words of the Father at the time of the baptism in verse 22 of Luke chapter 3, when He says, you are my beloved Son, He's not observing a fact. He's making a declaration. He is entering into that covenant. We recognize this is the beginning of Jesus' ministry, and rightly so. This is the beginning of Jesus' ministry as he represents those who are to be found in him. And so he goes through the baptism, he's just done that, he goes through a temptation, but he passes that temptation. What happened with Adam? When Adam entered into temptation, he crumbled. And you and I became liable for his guilt. Jesus, who has just entered into this covenant relationship, it's the beginning of his ministry, he goes and he represents us in the temptation. Not tempted as a private person, but tempted for all of those who will be in him. And he stands up to temptation number one. So the enemy brings another one. And he stands up to that one. He resists temptation again, obeys God. So the enemy brings a third one. And he stands up under that temptation as well. Resisting temptation, obeying God always, fulfilling all righteousness, not just as a private person, but for you and for me and for all who will have faith in him. That's what Luke wants us to be thinking about. He wants us to be recognizing that the things that Jesus does are particularly significant for you and for me. This is the farthest thing from some ancient history, some document that's a curiosity about names we can't pronounce in a place that's far away. This is the story about our destiny. When Jesus faces these trials, when He faces these temptations, when He walks in obedience to God, It's not as a private person. It's as Jesus, the Son of God, the last Adam, accomplishing what Adam failed at. Accomplishing it for you and for me. So that by faith in Him, we have His righteousness, His resisting the temptation credited to us. Have you resisted the temptation? Not all that often. No, I can point to times more, a million times more that I have given into the temptation than that I have resisted it. And more to the point, not just my own sin, but all the way back to Adam. What did Adam do? That's really the deciding factor. Adam crumbled at the first chance, plunging us all into sin and misery. And so, Jesus, having succeeded, gives me credit for Him having succeeded in resisting that temptation, in fulfilling all righteousness. By faith, His becomes ours. And then, of course, He went to the cross. He went to the place where the penalty for covenant breaking is to be paid. Though He had not broken the covenant. Who had broken the covenant? Ultimately and primarily it was Adam who broke that covenant. and then we all follow suit. We all are included in Adam, represented by Adam and thus we deserve that punishment for Adam's sin credited to us and for our own sin that we've pursued, that we have followed in our own lives. All of that guilt for covenant breaking was placed upon the one who was the only covenant keeper and he bore it in his body. to the point of death. Yes, He was hanging there and He was receiving and subjected to the worst that mankind could think of. But that's not really what was bad about the cross. What was bad about the cross is that while He hung there, the wrath of His Father was directed at Him for sin. Jesus hated sin just as much as the Father. Sin repulsed Jesus just as much as it repulsed the Father, and yet He agreed to have my sin placed upon Him. Sin doesn't repulse me like it repulses God. I've pursued it more times than I can count. got more sin than I'm aware of, and it was placed right upon Jesus, that repulsive stench of sin would have been bad enough for Jesus to become sin, to have my sin placed upon Him, but then to have the wrath of God for sin, for that very sin, directed at Him, the innocent one, but counted as the guilty one, counted as a million guilty ones. But he didn't do that as a private person. He did that as a representative for all of those who had put their faith in Christ. That they would find because of what he had accomplished in his life, in his obedience, in resisting temptation, and in his death, they would find that their sin has been punished. They've received forgiveness because of what their federal head, what Jesus did. They would find that their record of righteousness, which on their own they had no record of righteousness but a record of unrighteousness, by faith in Christ they have Jesus' whole record credited to them. Jesus is the Son of God and the last Adam. Luke would have us draw our attention all the way back to what Adam did wrong when he plunged the race into sin and misery and what Christ accomplished when he stood in that place and succeeded, gave victory where there had been death. Jesus is the last Adam. So a couple of points of application before we move to the Lord's Supper. What do we do with this? It's been a theological discussion. It's been a lesson taught. What do we do with what we just talked about? It's not just a new factoid for us to know. I like factoids. I like trivia. I like knowing things that other people may not have thought about or whatever. What do we do with this? First of all, make time for Jesus this Christmas season. Don't let the busyness of life crowd out Jesus. We need to take time reflecting, remembering about what Jesus' birth and life and death and resurrection means for us. Don't let this opportunity pass. Don't let the busyness get in the way. Don't let a break in your schedule then be filled with idleness get in the way either. We need to take time and think about Jesus and what He has accomplished. The ideas that I've talked about, what Jesus accomplished on our behalf is worthy of our thought. so much more than we will ever give it. And if we will think about these truths, it will reorient our entire value structure. It will help us to think about all of life. Let's not let this Christmas season pass without thinking deeply about what it is Jesus has done for us. Second point of application is particularly for parents. Parents, take the time this Christmas season to explain to your kids what God has done for us. don't let this opportunity pass. Our family uses an Advent book. It's a simple thing that's just got 25 different pages and there's a new verse that you read and a new discussion that you have each day and throughout from starting at December 1 all the way up through Christmas Day. It's just an opportunity for us to reflect and focus on what Christ has done, lest we let the opportunity pass. Because The calendar is already full. I don't know if you've looked at your calendar for this month. It's the first day of the month and it's already packed. Don't let the time pass. Parents, take the time to teach your kids about this. The world is bombarding them and distracting them with other reasons for the Christmas season. If they watch TV, if they watch anything with ads, they are being sold the next thing to buy. 22 next things to buy. They are being sold. They are being taught. They are being discipled. They are being mentored. They are having their values trained by the world always, and particularly during the Christmas season. And if parents are to outdo the world in teaching about Christmas, it will take a concerted effort. It will take making a decision and enacting it. It will take more than bringing them to church, though that's a vital part. It takes more than bringing them to the right events or to the right programs or to be taught by others why it is we celebrate this season. It will take those things, but it will take much more than that. It will take you taking the responsibility to teach them yourself about their sin, about its consequences, and about how God has resolved that problem in the incarnation and the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. And so, parents, thank you for bringing your kids to church. Thank you for being at church. Recognize that your responsibility in mentoring your children goes beyond that, because you will have them tonight as well, and you will have them tomorrow night, and you'll have them the night after that. God is giving you opportunity to point your kids to Christ, and there is no better time of year to do that than the Christmas season. And if you don't do that, they will be discipled in a particular way. So I would encourage you to direct your kids to Christ this Christmas season. The final point of application, of course, is our time of communion. If I could have the men come forward who are going to be serving the Lord's Supper. When we celebrate the Lord's Supper, there are a couple of elements that are involved. There is the cup, and then there's the bread. And those elements particularly point us to Christ. This is not some ritual that we do that performs some magic act in our lives or anything like that. This is calling our attention back to what Christ has done for us. It's a special way that the Lord ministers to us by drawing our affections and our attention back to Him in this time. And so this is something for Christians. For those who are not Christians, who have not placed their faith in Christ, I would let the elements pass and come talk to somebody afterwards about what this means, about how you can trust in Christ yourself, about how you can have eternal life in Jesus. But let those elements pass. Christians, this is a special time of communion throughout the year where we particularly think about the bookends, as it were, of Jesus' life. This is the celebration, the commemoration of how Jesus died, why he died, and what his death means. At the time of year when we're looking at the beginning of his life, when we're looking at the time when he was born and came into this world as a baby, Why did he do that? Well, he did that not as a private person. He did that as one who represents all of those who are in him. And so, we're going to take the bread in a few moments. The bread represents his body broken for us, the sacrifice made for us, because you and I deserve that punishment, but he stepped in the way. He went to the cross in our place, willing to bear that suffering for us. And so we celebrate by partaking of the bread, and then we have the cup. Jesus said that it's the new covenant in His blood. That new covenant is what we've talked about this morning, where the representative obeys and we get the credit for it. where Jesus himself completed, obeyed God, where Adam had disobeyed God. And he gives to us, to all of us who have faith in Christ, gives us the credit for having obeyed God instead of disobeyed. We receive that record of right, and we have our record of wrong cleansed because of his own sacrifice. That's the new covenant. where you and I get to be at peace with God because of what Jesus did. And so we're gonna celebrate this, and it is an encouraging and a blessed time. And so I would encourage you that even as the elements are being passed, ponder where you would be without Jesus, where you would be if you were left in your sins. Recognize your own sin and the weight of it, recognize how evil it is, and thank God that Jesus bore that for you. So take the opportunity as the cup is being passed, as the bread is being passed first, to confess your sin. Don't hold back, confess it to God. Ask Him to forgive you, and He does. Because Jesus paid the price. And so first, we come to the bread. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 11, In verse 23, I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night when he was betrayed, took bread. And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, this is my body, which is given for you. Let's pray. Father, as we think about Jesus' body given for us, we recognize that that tells us something about the weight and the guilt and the horror of our sin. That it would take the death of the Son of God to pay for it. Father, I confess my sin. We confess our sin before you. And we ask that you would forgive us. for Jesus' sake, because of His sacrifice on our behalf. In Jesus' name, amen. and and so so so so Yeah. Jesus said, this is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. Next, we take up the cup. Paul continues, in the same way also he took the cup after supper, saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. Father, we are grateful for this new covenant. Grateful that we are not stuck in that place of being covenant breakers to bear the penalty. But instead, we have a new covenant head, a new representative Jesus who resisted temptation on our behalf, who obeyed you in every way on our behalf, and who gave his life as a ransom on our behalf, that his blood was shed that we might have life. We rejoice in this life that we have in Christ. And we pray in Jesus' name, amen. so you Jesus said, do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. Amen. If you truly believe in Jesus Christ, all of your sin has been placed upon Him, executed in Him, and because of what He has accomplished, you have life. Isn't it a beautiful truth? Amen. Gentlemen, you may be seated. I would encourage you that at the close of our service, This is the Sunday of the month where we take a benevolence offering. If you would mark that on the envelopes and place that in the box in the back, I would appreciate that. And I'll be in the back to say hi to, if you haven't met me before, if I've not met you, then come meet me and let's talk about what we talked about this morning and about the Lord Jesus. Let me close in prayer and then we're going to conclude with the hymn. Father, Thank you so much for what Christ has done for us, that we have life because of him. Thank you for Jesus, the Son of God and the last Adam, in whom we have hope, in whom we have peace with you, in whom we have life and hope for all eternity. Thank you for Jesus. and we pray in his name, amen. We'll have the worship team come back up. We're going to close today with a hymn very specifically about communion. Behold the Lamb. It reads, so we share in this bread of life and we drink of his sacrifice as a sign of our bonds of love around the table of the king. So I'd ask you to stand together with us one last time as we close in song. Behold the Lamb who bears our sins away, slain for us. And we remember the promise made that our homecoming flame might for keep us at the cross. So we share in this bread of life that we drink, of this sacrifice as a sign of our bonds of peace around the table of the King. The body of our Savior, Jesus Christ, born for you. Eat and remember the wounds that heal, the death that brings us life. Pay the price to make us one. So we share. In His bread of life, and we drink of His sacrifice as a sign of our bonds of love around the table. The blood that cleanses every stain I'll see, shed for you. Drink and remember, He drained and stopped that all made him to agree to receive the life of mine. So we share, In His bread of life, and we drink of His sacrifice as a sign of our bonds of grace around the table of the King. And so with thankfulness and faith we rise to respond and to remember Our call to follow in the steps of Christ as his body in wonder. Selfsame share in his suffering, we proclaim Christ will come again and we'll join in the feast of heaven around the table of the King. I believe today with these words from 2 Corinthians, may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all, amen. God bless you all.