Stand and begin our time of singing together with hope and glory. We are lost without Your glory. We are lost without Your love. The fire that burns within us. The love that purifies. Send Your power and Your salvation. Let us see Your kingdom come. Only You can move the mountains Only You can heal the land Christ the Lord, our hope and glory Christ the Lord, in You we stand Arise, show us mercy, now we need Your Father's love Lead us home And out of darkness, with your gospel burning bright. For only you can move the mountains, only you can heal the land. Christ alone, all over glory, Christ alone in new descent. Oh Christ the Lord, our hope and glory, Christ the Lord, in you we stand. Christ alone in you we stand. Oh God, listen to my cry. Hear my prayer. From the ends of the earth I'm crying to you for help when my heart is overwhelmed. Lead me to the towering rock of safety, for you are my safe refuge, a fortress where my enemies cannot reach me. Let me live forever in your sanctuary, safe beneath the shells of your wings. Psalm 61, 1 and 4. it's time to sing Let me hear you sing, let me hear you come Bless the Lord, oh my soul Worship His holy name Sing like never before Oh my soul I'll worship your holy name You're rich in love and you're slow to anger Your name is great and your heart is high For all your goodness I will keep on singing O Lord, O my soul, O my soul, worship His holy name. Save like never before, O my soul, I'll worship Your holy name. And on that day when my strength is failing, The end draws near and my time has come Still my soul will sing your praise unending 10,000 years will be forever more Bless the Lord, oh my soul It might never be gone Oh my soul, I wish you'd known Like never before Oh, my soul I'll worship your holy name Yes, I'll worship your holy name Lord, I'll worship your holy name When I did His way and said, I long to be with Him and be true. To Jesus I hold as I face every step, for the Lord, He will give me His peace. To bless the Lord, He will give me His peace. To bless the Lord, He will give me His peace. and it seems I'm The role that you offer's the weight of the cross For my pain and my sorrow you bear So to you I shall hold you indeed in every heart For my Lord, you have given your son And bless you, Lord, for he gives you his son yes yes He makes you. Thank you for the church and we are able to worship you together. Please use these funds for your glory. and stand together again to sing the wonderful truth that if we're truly born again, by God's grace, then Christ is mine forevermore. By the grace that God has shown me, Oh Oh I've had tears in times of sorrow, darkened sky and under sun. Through the valley I must travel, where I see all the world began. For mine is peace that flows from heaven, and the strength and life of me. I know my pain will not be wasted, Christ completes His work. As a stranger, you will not have come here away. Not with Christ I will encounter, I will meet you in holy day. But mine is honor for this battle, Strong enough to last the war, and be as steady I It drives out my soul, for His love is my reward. There is not an open door, Christ is mine forevermore. is mine Second, Psalm 121, the songs of ascent. And you know how this one begins? I look up to the hills. From where does my help come? From whence cometh my help? Whichever version we use. I'm facing a treacherous journey up to Jerusalem. On the other end, there's joy and celebration, but there's a lot of danger lurking in between. And I look at those hills, Man, where's my help come from? My help comes from the Lord. So, whatever, I mean, we're facing a treacherous journey, and this will probably be a little tough to get through, but you know it, so sing out, but we know, and those of us who are born again, we know our help comes from the Lord, and He'll keep us. He surrounds us behind and before, so let's rejoice as we sing, He will keep you. Yeah. I lift my eyes and see I need not be afraid! All my help comes from the Lord! Through the earth and sky and sea He will keep me, come all ye people! He will sustain them through this journey, from now on and evermore. The Lord will ever see us as we have today. For the one who holds the light Is the Son of our King He will keep you from all evil Behind you and before He looks to save you through this journey He will keep you, come what may, behind you and before. He will sustain you through this journey, for now and evermore. He will keep you, from all the earth behind you and before. We will sustain you through this journey from now on and evermore. Amen. The scripture reading this morning is from Luke chapter 4, verses 16 to 30. Jesus rejected at His hometown. Now Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and the regaining of the sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.' Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fixed on him. And then he began to tell them, Today this scripture has been fulfilled, even as you heard it being read. All were speaking well of him, and were amazed at the gracious words coming out of his mouth. And they said, Isn't this Joseph's son? Jesus said to them, No doubt you will quote to me the proverb, Position, heal yourself, and say, What we have heard that you did in Capernaum, do here in your hometown too. And he added, I tell you the truth, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown. But in truth I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in Elijah's days, when the sky was shut up three and a half years, and there was a great famine all over the land. Yet Elijah was sent to none of them, but only to a woman who was a widow and zarephath in Sidon. And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha. Yet none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian. When they heard this, all the people in the synagogue were filled with rage. They got up and forced him out of the town and brought him to the brow of the hill in which their town was built, so that they could throw him down over the cliff. But he passed through the crowd and went on his way. Before I get to my message, I just want to mention a couple of things. On Father's Day, I don't remember the exact date, the 18th of June. We're planning a baby dedication. So that's something we've never done before, but we're planning on doing a baby dedication. So put that on your calendar, keep it on your calendar. Also, it noted we're having a baptism on July August 6th. We're planning a baptism. Quentin? And Adam and Maddie are going to be baptized, as well as Lance. Lance expressed the desire to be baptized to me last week. And Nathan, I'm sorry. And Nathan, too. So we have five candidates for baptism this coming August. And so we look forward to that. Also, I just wanted to mention that Cindy's with us today and you noticed that Steve was getting a little emotional and so am I. Beginning next week or the week after, I'm not sure the exact date, but this will be the last week she'll be with us for a while. She's going to be going into Carmanos for a bone marrow transplant and it's our prayer that she will, that the Lord will bless her through this and restore her and bring back full health. It's a very serious procedure and you're in our prayers. All right, let's pray. Father in heaven, we come to you now and we ask that you would hear our prayers. And we know you do. As we lift our hearts and our minds before you to hear us in our time of need and petition, Lord, we pray that you would be with Steve and Cindy and the crew at Carmanos as they go through the procedure of eradicating the cancer cells and restoring a new inner marrow of her blood, a new life through that, for her to live, to be restored to a long life, to enjoy, the new grandbabies that they have, as well as Miles and any others that will come, we just pray for them. Pray that you lift them up with Steve as he ministers to Cindy through this time. And for wisdom and skill of the doctors and the crew at Carmanos to do what they know and how to do it best. We pray for her response. We pray that you would just guide the hands and you would guide her body. Strengthen her through this whole time and be with her and give her encouragement to know that you're there by her side. He will keep you. Lord, we pray for our service today. Pray that you would be honored through it as we look into your word. Lord, your word is the truth. All we want to do is just proclaim the truth, the truth of who you are. And Lord, we need your help in that. that you will keep us, and Lord, we pray that you would fill us today. Fill us with the power to understand, fill us with the knowledge and the mind to take the truth of the scripture and apply him to our hearts and use him for the glory of our Savior Jesus, and we do so through the power of the Spirit. May he work in us this day. May he fill us until we're full. Just thank you for that. Pray that you would be with me as I look in the Lord, that we would together glean from these truths, and I pray that in Jesus' precious name. Amen. Our scripture reading today, scripture memory verse, I should say, is all scriptures are created out by our All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. Paul's exhorting Timothy that the most important thing for him in his ministry is to preach the word of God and to proclaim the truth of who God is in Jesus Christ. And that in doing that, it's profitable. It's good. It's a good thing. It's something that helps us to grow in grace and knowledge and wisdom of Jesus Christ. We're filled with the Spirit to receive these truths. And we accept them in the correction of our misunderstanding of the Scripture, our correction in when we don't obey the Scripture, in the training of righteousness, how we are to take the Word of God, to learn what it means to be righteous and to continue in pursuit of that righteousness and that we may be complete. that we might be filled, we might be full of the Holy Spirit, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. And as I think of that passage and I think of Jesus, we see that in chapter 4, verse 1, it says, in Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit. Today in Sunday School, we're going to be looking a little bit more at what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit for us as believers. But Jesus, in this context, Luke is telling us that Jesus is full of the Holy Spirit. And that if Jesus needs that fullness, how much more do we need it? If Jesus was dependent on the Holy Spirit to help him through his ministry, how much do we need it? And then we see on that the context is that he's led out into the wilderness and Satan was there and tempted him in his weakest moments. When he was out there and he was hungry and he was tired, I don't ever think he really wanted to feel like he wanted to give up, but he was depending on the Spirit of God to get him through this tough and difficult time. He was full of the Holy Spirit when he returned from the Jordan. So he didn't empty himself of his fullness of the Spirit, he emptied himself in the kenosis as he emptied himself of the use of his deity when he came to this earth. as a man and become like us who get tired and who get hungry and sometime we get hurt. Yet Jesus is demonstrating to us and he's led into the spirit to start a fight. He's there to pick a fight with Satan. And we see that they get into this interaction back and forth regarding the scriptures. Satan tempts him, Jesus responds with scriptures. The scripture is something that we need. The truth of the scripture and the clear exposition of the scriptures is vital for a church. For us to thrive, the most important thing we can do is hold to the truth of God's word. When we started our church 20 years ago, one of the commitments that I made based on my own personal experience and the experience of others that were in our church, one of the things that we committed that we would not do is have an evangelist. And what I mean by evangelist, I mean by itinerant preachers, because generally speaking, from my experience, when they would come into the church, they would give this emotional series of messages over a series of time. People would respond, walk forward, and it was all feeling-oriented. I've been there. I was a victim of that. I vowed I would never do that, I would never let an evangelist come into our church. And for the next three or four weeks I have to sit and explain and reorient the church. So as I think about that, and as I think about the necessity So I want to expand on that. Let me just expand on that a little bit. So, if I don't want those kind of people who are in there who don't hold to the truth, I do want people here who can explain the truth. That's why Jack, in the beginning of our service, opens up and he gives us a short exposition on a passage to help us to focus us, get us oriented in the right direction. Scott fills in for me more often now than not. capable, going through the book of Colossians, the epistle of Colossians, to help us understand, you know, the scriptures, to clarify the truth of the scriptures. Starting in July, Bill's going to be teaching Sunday school, going through a series on Sunday school. We're discussing right now what it's to be, but it's going to be something that uplifts Christ through the scriptures. On Wednesday night we go through and we look at Bible passages or principles and not only me but sometimes Bob, sometimes Bill, sometimes Steve. We all go through the opportunity to have to share in the Word of God. Scott on Wednesday night with his group and sometimes Declan filling in. I mean, we have a lot of capable people who know the Scriptures and one of the things that I am certain and so sure of that I want is that they teach and preach from the Scriptures. Why am I saying this? What is motivating me today to be so adamant about the Scriptures that we preach in this church? Well, it has to do with what happened with Jesus. Chapter 4, verse 14. And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and a report about Him went throughout all the surrounding country, and He taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all. Jesus' ministry was a teaching ministry, and it wasn't a ministry that was apart from the Scriptures. It was a ministry that was emphasizing the Scriptures because, as we'll see in a minute, they testified of Him. The Scriptures are all about Christ, the Holy Spirit, who is the one who breathed out the Scriptures through the prophets, through the writers, through the apostles, as they wrote the Scriptures. As they did that, as He did that, He's using that, and Jesus is the one. And what's He doing? He's highlighting the life of Jesus. And so here we have Jesus going out, and He's teaching in their synagogue. And I think He's not teaching moral lessons. He's not going out with feel-good sermons, calling you to repent, and then walking out and leaving. He was there. He was there for the long haul. And He was being glorified by all. Everybody just loved Him. They loved His teaching. They loved His preaching. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine sitting at the feet of Jesus? I mean, at the Sermon on the Mount, or all the different places that Jesus would go, and people would sit, and He would feed you, you know? He'd give you a meal, and He would Turn the few loaves of bread into enough bread to feed it all, to fill everybody, enough fish to give them a balanced carb and protein meal to strengthen them. That's what coming up, we're gonna see that that's what Jesus did. So he was appreciated. He was well received. by the people because he was different than the Pharisees. The Pharisees were there and they were teaching but they didn't speak with power. They didn't speak with authority. They didn't speak with the people's interest at their heart. Jesus was different. Jesus was different. Verse 16 leads us into a story. And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. As was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up to read. So again, as we think about this, as we think about the idea of what's going on here, we see that Jesus is going to a synagogue. Synagogue was a place of worship. They had many synagogues. Every city in Jerusalem, or I'm sorry, in Israel, most everyone had a synagogue. And they had an archesynagogue. and Arke Sennachige, a ruler of the synagogue, kind of like the pastor of the church. And he was the overseer of what the activities would be in their particular assembly. And typically, what would happen, they would start their service by singing a psalm or two. Then they would read the Shema from Deuteronomy, chapter 6, verses 4 to 9. Hear, O Israel, the Lord is one, the Lord is your God. You should love the Lord your God with all of your heart, all of your mind, all of your soul, and all of your strength, and on and on. So they would recite that together as a group. They would listen to the law. They would do a repetition of 18 blessings called the Shemona Esaiah. It was just 18 blessings that they, as Israelites, had received, and they were acknowledging the blessings that God has poured out onto them. Then they would have a reading from the Law and the Scriptures, from Hebrew. Then they would repeat it in Aramaic, because most people didn't speak Hebrew. It was read in their original language, what it was written in, and then the Aramaic, so that they could understand it. Then they would go and read from the Targum, which is partly a commentary on the scriptures, the Old Testament scriptures. Then they would read from the prophets. They would read something like Jesus did, as we will see in a moment, from the book of Isaiah, from the prophets, in Hebrew. And then they would read it in Aramaic again. Then they would get a sermon on the scripture, and they're concluding with a blessing. And I would imagine they ended with a psalm. Sounds a lot like our service, sort of. We think about it. We have a psalm up there. We have readings. Jack was going through part of the gospel. We sang a song from the psalms. I'm trying to think of the word. Emulate. Emulate. There we go. We emulate a synagogue service in a sense. So there's nothing new under the sun. Why do we do what we do? Well, number one, scripture's number one. But number two, we want to honor God through that. And we want to praise him. And so they would worship him. And so as we think about this text, Jesus doesn't just get invited and go up. Because it says right here, in this particular text, it says, he stood up to read. The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him He unrolled the scroll and then he read it. And when he was done, he rolled it up, handed it back, and sat down. He stood up. He sat down. He unrolled it. He rolled it. He sat down. It was handed to him. I mean, there's this chiasmic order going on. But in the middle, and I think it's written this way, Luke wrote this way intentionally to show us that the pinnacle of this whole message and this whole thing that was going on is Jesus was making the Scriptures most important. He said, and this is what he wrote. The Spirit of the Lord, verse 18, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me. because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed. to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. You know what I'm listening to as I'm going through this? He came to proclaim the good news. Oh, wait a minute. He has the good news, but who's he proclaiming it to? The poor. Does that not sound a lot like Jesus' message in his beatitude that Jack's been going through? The poor in spirit? He's preaching to those who are poor in spirit that they need to know and understand that apart from God they have nothing and they are totally dependent on Him. He's quoting this. I've been anointed for this, He says. This One who would come. He's anointed. He's full of the Spirit of God. The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me. Notice the me in there, and Jesus just reading the text. It's me, it's me, it's me. He has set me to proclaim liberty to the captives, to recover of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. And then he sits down. Rolls it up, sits down. and all the eyes, and he's actually sitting in the synagogue, he's sitting on a seat. He's not back in the crowd, he's sitting on a seat up in front of everybody, which is called the seat of Moses in the synagogue. You go to Israel today, you go to Capernaum, this old synagogue there, up in the front of it, they have this seat up there, it's called the seat of Moses. They've recovered it from the archeological ruins and they put it up there. And so here, it very well could be the same seat that Jesus sat on. in Capernaum. No, that can't be because this is in Nazareth. It's Nazareth. But you get the point. He sat down and he began to say to them today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. And you know this word today doesn't mean today, this 24 hour period. That's what we think of when we think of a day, we think of that, and yes it is a 24 hour period, darkness and light, and all of that, the circuit of the sun around, of the earth around the sun for one day, and we get what we call today. This word today here doesn't mean that, it means today. From this point on, Today is forever. Jesus is saying today, this scripture is fulfilled in you. This scripture was fulfilled then, and it's fulfilled to us today. How is it fulfilled to us today? Well, it says here in verse 22, and all spoke well of him and marveled at his gracious words that were coming from his mouth. Yes, Jesus, we love what you're saying. And they said, Is this not Joseph's son? So you could take that, is this not Joseph's son? Look at Joseph's son. Look at how well he speaks. Or maybe you could take it in a negative way. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. What did I just hear you say? Today, this scripture about the Messiah is fulfilled in you? It's exactly what Jesus was saying. It's exactly. They didn't miss it. Somebody was in their pulpit and stirred the core of their being that, wait a minute. We know who you are, Jesus. You're Joseph's son. We know your hometown. We know what you do. You're a carpenter. You're not a prophet. Jesus prophesies, actually, what he says here. After they say that, is this not Joseph's son? And he said to them, doubtless you will cope with this problem. Physician, heal yourself. You know on the cross when he was up there, what did they say about him? What was one of the accusations that was railed at him? You healed others, but you can't heal yourself. Jesus is prophetic. He's telling us exactly what's going to happen. What have we heard you did at Capernaum do here in your hometown as well? He's making a prophecy. He hasn't been to Capernaum yet. But what he's telling us is, I'm going to go to Capernaum, and I'm going to do some amazing things, and you're going to say to me, wow, why didn't you do it here? And we know why, because they didn't receive it by faith. Verse 24, truly I say to you, no prophet is acceptable his own home. So now he's acknowledging, I am a prophet. Yes, I am. You a prophet? Yes. I'm the prophet. I'm the one who is proclaiming these truths and acknowledging that these truths from Isaiah belong to me. I am the one who's going to help the poor, the oppressed, I'm going to be the one that recovers the sight of the blind. And so we think about this, did Jesus do all of those things? The question is, is He still doing those things today? Yes! Spiritually blind people, spiritually poor people, spiritually oppressed people, captives, slaves to sin, freed. That's what it means to be a Christian. And that's what Jesus is saying He's going to do, that He's doing in Capernaum, in a physical kind of way, but today in a spiritual way. We have a promise of a healing from Jesus. Then he asked them, truly I say that no prophet is acceptable as hometown. In truth, I tell you. And so he goes into some Old Testament stories about Elijah and Elisha. two Old Testament prophets in a time when the nation of Israel was in spiritual despondency, spiritual apathy. They didn't care about God. So God sends Elijah and Elisha. And Elijah, he opens the heavens when they were shut. He went to one particular widow in Zarephath in the land of Sidon, which is outside of the land of Israel. He goes to a Gentile woman, a widowed Gentile woman. What does he do? He restores to her what she needs. The whole land, the heavens were shut up. And God says, you know what? I'm going to abandon you, this Gentile woman. And then he says, Elijah also, Elisha. And there were many lepers in Israel, verse 27, in the time of the prophet Elisha. And none of them was cleansed. God was not working in the nation there because of their spiritual disinterest of God. Naaman the Syrian. General Naaman. General of the Syrian army comes. He's got leprosy. And he heals him. And the point is, and he's challenging the people in Nazareth at their time. Are you like the people in Elijah and Elisha's day? Are you spiritually dead? You need to be awakened. And the question for us today is, is the church, is the church in a time of spiritual apathy? Let's bring it down to another level. Is this church, this particular church, guilty of apathy in which God is not gonna bless? It's a good question to ask. I believe that the key to that is our commitment to God's Word. If we remain true and committed to God through His Word and understand that that Word is the truth that was preached by Jesus and claiming it for Himself, well, what do we do? We preach Christ. We preach Him. He quotes this particular passage in Isaiah, and he stops just short of chapter 61, verse 2. Jesus is cherry-picking the scriptures, you might say. We are not to do that. We can't cherry-pick the scriptures. We just can't pick a scripture that we like and just use it. But Jesus can. because he knows the scriptures, because it's all about him. He knows that this particular portion has to do with the first advent, his first coming. He's come in the flesh. He's come as flesh and blood, with bones, with DNA. He's human. He's come in his first. And here's what he's come to do. But he doesn't quote from chapter 61 verse 2 and he omits it because he says that the day of vengeance is coming too. What's that all about? That's about the second coming. The day of vengeance. What's vengeance? What is vengeance? We talked about this on Wednesday night. What's vengeance? Mine says the Lord, not something we do, something the Lord does. We have no right to express vengeance. None whatsoever. It's the Lord who does vengeance. But look at what they did. But look at what they did. When they heard all these things, all, all, all, every single one of them, were filled with wrath. That's what it means to be in vengeance, to be filled with wrath and hatred. We know who you are, Jesus. You're not who you say you are. The question is, do we believe that Jesus is who he says he is? I hope so. I hope you do. And they rose up and drove him out of the town and brought him to the brow of the hill. on which their town was built, so that they could throw him down the cliff. The point is, when you throw somebody down a cliff, you don't just say, get out of here. You pick up stones, and you throw them on him to try to kill him. That's what their intent was. Their intent was to do away with him, just like they did Stephen. They cast him down, and there's stones on him. But Jesus said, Not yet. It's not time yet. My time for giving my life has not come yet. What does he do? He walks through the confusion. He walks through the chaos and they don't even know it. It's amazing. It's amazing. No wonder people were amazed at Jesus. He was always in control of everything rose up to roll them out of town. Actually, if you were to go to Nazareth today, just above the valley of the Jezreel Valley, on the other side is Harmageddon, but on the other side is Nazareth. Right on the edge of that, there's this cliff that drops down. And right at the top of the cliff, there's this park bench and the shaded kind of cover to keep you out of the sun because it gets hot there. And we, as we were in Israel, we sat on that. And I wonder if that was where Jesus was when they were trying to put him to death. Maybe, but it was in that same general area. The question is, what do we do with Jesus? Do we accept him? Do we believe in him? I mean, this is the year of the Lord's favor. What do you mean, the year of the Lord's favor? It's always the year of the Lord's favor, as long as He's in us and filling us with the Spirit. Jesus knew their heart. Jesus knew their heart. He knew exactly what they were going to do. He knew exactly how they were going to respond. He prophesied. Was it something He saw in their face? Oh, okay, I know how they're gonna respond to this. Or was it something that he saw in their hearts? What does Jesus see in our hearts? How do we respond to Jesus? Do you love Jesus? Do you embrace Him? Do you come to Him and say, Jesus, I need you, I'm poor. Jesus, I need you, I'm oppressed. I'm oppressed by the world around me. I'm oppressed by Satan. I'm blind. I can't see. I need my eyes to be opened. I can't open my own eyes. I need my eyes to be opened to the truth. I'm captive to my sin. I need freedom. I need release. I need liberty. How? Through the good news. That's it. Through the good news of Jesus. Trust in Jesus. He's the only way. There's nothing you can do. There's no thing that we can do in this world to make ourselves better before God. We can do all kinds of things. We can do a lot of religious things. We can do a lot of things that we think that are philanthropic. We can give a lot of money to try to please God, but we can't. It takes one thing. Trust. In Jesus alone. Trust in His Son. Not your works. It's His work. Embrace Him. Love Him. Know His Word because His Word is more important than anything. All scripture is God-breathed. It's from God. Everything that he says and everything he does is true. We need nothing more than to know the scriptures and if we know the scriptures we know Jesus. Trust him and love him all the days of your life. Embrace him because he is the one who was sent to save us from our sins. Today, Lord, this is a message of good news. And it's here in Jesus. Lord, we thank You that Jesus is the only way. He's the way and the truth and the life. And Lord, we know that He comes from humble roots. We know that the people of His day were religious. They were very religious. They were regularly attending their church services. They were going there, and they were hearing scriptures, and they were listening, and they were paying attention, and they were paying attention the day that you went, in particular, in which you proclaim that you are the Messiah. You are the Christ. You're the one that could deliver them, the only one that could deliver them from their bondage of sin. Lord, we know that those religious people rejected you, just like in the days of Elijah, just like in the days of Elisha. Lord, You're the Master and the Lord, the Savior of Your own, and we draw Your own to Yourself, Lord, we thank You for that. Lord, we pray that we might not spurn Jesus, that You know everything, and that we need to have our eyes fixed on You and You alone. You are our Master, You are the Savior, You're the one who fills us. You give us your spirit to be able to have strength and wisdom and power, Lord. We know that it comes through your work in our life. It doesn't matter how we feel. It doesn't matter where we're from. It doesn't matter what kind of family we come from. All that matters is what do we do with Jesus. Lord, we know that the Scriptures are vitally important, vitally important. Jesus, they speak of you, Lord. They speak of who you are. Lord, we know that they're profitable, and that they are, they exhort us, challenge us, not to become so comfortable with who you are, knowing facts about you, Lord. but to know you personally as our Lord and our Savior, Lord. Lord, we're told in Scripture some hard things. Number one, we're told you tell us to eat your flesh. We're also told to drink your blood. Unless we understand that those are spiritual truths that are true, that you command your people, your own, your sheep to come to you, Lord. We thank you that you've given your life and that you did shed your blood. And unless we drink of that blood in a metaphorical way, we live our lives for you forever and ever and ever, Lord. I pray that as we contemplate that, as we contemplate Our Lord's Supper today, as we prepare our hearts to take these elements, Lord, we know that they are just emblematic of a deeper truth that resides within us, Lord, and the fact that we have acknowledged that You are the Bread of Life. And Lord, that You are the only one who can satisfy us in the drink of Your blood, that You shed Your blood for us, that You gave Your life for us. So Lord, as we come to you today, as we prepare our hearts to be receptive of these truths of the scripture, we just thank you for that. We're thankful for that the fulfillment of your claims is the fulfillment of what we proclaim. that is focused on the truth. We pray that we might keep our eyes fixed on you every day, in every moment that we live, that everything we do is guided by you. Paul says, it's one thing I do, but this thing, one thing, is many facets, so that everything we do is for your glory and your honor. Help us to remember that. We do it. because you're grand and glorious and you gave your life for us. Lord, do your work in the hearts today. We know that we can't do anything on our own. We pray that the Spirit of God would just take our hearts, break them open, that the Spirit of God would come in in a new kind of way to show us the truth of who we are and who Jesus is. And as believers, Lord, that we might be filled with Spirit as we look into the Scriptures and understand We see them as they correlate with you, Lord. We just thank you for that. We pray that as we prepare our hearts, we might rejoice in you. We look forward to the day that we can see you face to face. And we thank you for it. In Jesus' precious name, amen. Just stay with me as we sing our closing song, and then we'll partake of the Lord's Supper. I was away. I remember who I was. I was lost. I was blind. I was running out of time. From the far side of the chasm, you held me in your sight. So you made a way across the great divide. Left behind and betrothed to build it here inside. There at the cross, you paid the debt I owed. Broke my chains, freed my soul for the first time. Thank you, Jesus, for God and I. Thank you, Jesus, who has washed me white. Thank you, Jesus, you have saved my life. me from the darkness you were married for three days That is the sweetest life that awaits For I have been transformed a a a a a a a a a There is nothing stronger than the wonder-working power of the blood of God. And God does not regard us. We are granted by our Father. Thank you, Jesus, the God of life! Thank you, Jesus, who has washed me white! Thank you, Jesus, who has saved my life! Brought me from the darkness into glorious light! ♪ Glory to His name ♪ ♪ Glory to His name ♪ ♪ There to my heart was a blood applied ♪ ♪ Glory to His name ♪ You may be seated. I'll ask our deacons to come forward. Before we distribute the elements, I just wanted to mention that this is a time where we as Christians come together to fellowship around the breaking of the bread and the cup that Jesus commanded us. And we are to take and eat and do this in memory of me and to take and drink I do this in memory of me. We do this because of what Christ did. It's just a memorial and remember, we remember what Jesus did. There's no power in the elements. There's no physical power. There's no spiritual power. There's no transformation. It's just remembrance. And we remember what Jesus did. We want to do that because we love him and because we want to serve him. If you don't have that love for Jesus, return to Christ today. But if you do, join Him with us as we partake of these elements, as we look to them, as we look to Jesus, and the reality of who He is, our Lord and Savior. All right. Bob, would you pray and thank the Lord for the shedding of His, for the breaking of His body as we take the Omen of the Bread. Father, again, we thank you for this time we can be together, this special time when we think about your blood and your body that was broken for us. As we take this element that represents your body that you might, again, work in our hearts, help us to look to you, keep our focus on you, and remember all you've done for us. We pray in Jesus' name. you So we think about the element we're going to take, which represents his body that he came and gave to us. And He came, gave His body to show us. Show us what? To show the Father in a tangible way, He was willing to do what God wanted Him to do. They were just not words. To show Him that He was able to call on scriptures to fight the battles He was facing. Are we? To show us that what he would not do, and that is give in to spiritual pressures, physical temptations. To show us that central role of scripture is to persevere when the going gets tough. It's important for our life in church. To show us his life personally is shaped by its contours of God's word, not just biblical prowess. Knowing the word, knowing the words of scripture is good, but are we shaped to show the importance of childhood training in all the Lord's ways, preparing our children to face the world, and then at home, and then live a life from that in a way that is honoring to Christ. He came and gave His body to show that obedience is the key to fulfilling His purpose. He came to show that Faithfulness in the Scriptures is the key that unlocks the future in that life of obedience through faith and trust. He came and gave His body to show us that being filled with the Spirit, what being filled with the Spirit looks like, recognizable, standing out from the crowd. He came to show how much we trust, He trusted in the leaning of the Spirit, even in hostile territory. He came to show us to have a positive attitude in the face of adversity. Love your neighbors. Love your enemies. He came to show us the genuineness of our love and commitment to the Father, to His Word and His people. He came and gave His body so that our calling in life, whatever that may be, has purpose and meaning because of our new identity in Christ Jesus. We are in the body of Christ. This is not the body of Christ. We as believers are the body of Christ. He came to show that the life of faith without hypocrisy can be very attractive to the world and uniting, yet he also showed us that our commitment to Christ can be very distancing, too. We have a commitment, and that sometimes hurts. He came to show us that regular corporate worship And the reading of God's word is vital, and not merely a thing to do, but aligns us to God's purposes for us. That's what this represents. It represents Jesus' body, but what did Christ do with that body? We're the body. What are we doing? Commit your life to Christ. Let's eat. Scott, would you thank the Lord for the atoning sacrifice of Christ on the cross as we prepare our hearts to receive this element of grape juice as a representation of His blood? Father, we do thank You for the sacrifice of Christ. As Rob has explained to us, Jesus' statements of eating His flesh and drinking His blood, the Lord's Supper communion is simply that picture of us personally appropriating, accepting what was done for us on the cross. His broken, dead body, shed blood, giving His life for us. Father, we thank You for forgiveness, so we can be related to You, rightly related to You, through the sacrifice of Christ. Thank You for the gift You've given, of life with You. so so Wow! Luke reminds us that all turned their back on Jesus that day, every single one, and that is the way it is with the world. Everybody turns their back on Jesus until the Spirit of God comes and makes us anew and opens our eyes to see the reality of who Jesus is. We know that it was made possible by the blood of the cross that Jesus gave as he shed his blood on the cross. Oh, the religious crowd in this day was a feckled crowd. step on their toes and they're ready, they're off of blood. Jesus said, not yet, not until Calvary. And then Jesus gave his life. He willingly gave up his life. They arrested him. He gave his life to redeem a people to himself. and shed His blood to atone for our sinfulness. Not just the things we do, but the very nature of who we are. To redeem us back to the Father so that we can have a right relationship with God. It's the only way. There is no other way. Jesus is the answer. I am the way, the truth, and the life. And no one comes to the Father but by me. Nothing plus Jesus, nothing minus Jesus. Jesus alone, his shed blood. Trust in the blood of Jesus Christ. Rejoice as we drink for what he did for us. Let's drink. Father, we're thankful for the opportunity, once again, to open Your Word, to open the Scriptures up, to find Jesus. And in these texts today, we see Jesus telling us exactly who He is. We know who He is, we believe in Him, we trust in Him. May we reflect that in how we live our lives. May You empower us by Your Spirit to live that life. May You fill us by Your goodness. And we pray that in Christ's name, in Jesus' name, Amen. We're going to take our offering up, our fellowship offering at this time, and then we'll be dismissed. One second. All right. All right. One more thing on our agenda today. Two weeks ago I announced to you that Paul and Cheryl had a desire to join our church. Two weeks to let me know whether there are any objections and nobody said no. So I take that as we have a hundred percent positive vote. for receiving them into our membership. And so, I'm gonna ask, we're gonna need to start out, have a business meeting. Do I have a motion from the members of our church to, Anne, to open a business meeting, okay? Do we have a second by Ray? All in favor, say aye. Aye. Okay, anybody oppose? No. I hope not. All right, do we have a motion to receive Paul and Cheryl Cooper into our membership? Seconded by Katie. All in favor say aye. Aye. Anybody opposed? All right. Motion's carried. Do we have a motion to close this business meeting? Marianne. Seconded by Clayton. All in favor say aye. Aye. I don't think anybody's opposed. Anybody opposed? No. Paul and Sheryl, would you come up here and, and, and, this is Pine Grove Bible Church, let's welcome into our membership. I want to be the first. Thank you. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Take off. I don't know how to play that.