There's also outlines on the back table that have the passage in them. We're resuming our sermon series in Hebrews, chapter 13 now. It's been a few weeks, so I'll do a brief review. We've been looking at our life's journey as Christians, our pilgrimage from sin to glory in our Father's house. Of course, we have Psalm 84 as our song that we sing along with that, talking about our yearning for our Father's house. This journey is described in Hebrews 12. as a race that we run, looking unto Jesus as the one who has been so marvelously presented to us in the first 11 chapters of the book of Hebrews, especially the first 10 chapters, I guess, as our most excellent high priest. He is the only priest who is God in human flesh. The only priest who lives forever. The only priest who is appointed with an oath. The only priest who represents us at heaven and the altar in heaven made without hands. The only priest with a sacrifice that was offered that actually takes away our sins forever. the only priest who has offered himself as a sacrifice for our sins. We run this race to glory in our Father's house, looking to Jesus as our sufficient provision as our perfect example of endurance, and as the one who is able to actually strengthen us and help us to go on for God. We couldn't do it without His grace. In Hebrews 13, we have been looking at God's instructions about how to conduct ourselves along the way on this journey. We are to let brotherly love continue, including reaching out to our brothers that we do not know, to strangers, Remembering prisoners, honoring marriage, being content with what the Lord has given us. And we are looking now at how we are to maintain worship in the way that we have been instructed, which includes not getting caught up in rituals. Sometimes God's people going along the way will deviate this way and that way. Very, very common to deviate in areas of worship. We're to go on in the way that God has appointed. looking to be established by grace and not by rituals and works of the law and things like that. Grace that comes from looking to Jesus and the simplicity of the approach that God has given us to Him in the New Testament. Today we want to look especially at feeding upon Christ as the bread that gives us eternal life. And how it's very different than the feast that they had in the Old Testament. This feeding upon Christ that we do in the New Testament is different than the feeding that they had, the feast that they had in the Old Testament. Our text today is Hebrews 13, 10, and 11. Just very briefly touch on verse 11, but probably go into it a little bit next week as it ties right into what we'll be looking at next week. But I will begin by reading from verse 1. This is God's word. May God add his blessing to the reading of his word. Hebrews 13, 1. Let brotherly love continue. Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some have unwittingly entertained angels. Remember the prisoners as if chained with them, those who are mistreated, since you yourselves are in the body also. Marriage is honorable among all in the bed undefiled, but fornicators and adulterers God will judge. Let your conduct be without covetousness. Be content with such things as you have, for he himself has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. So we may boldly say the Lord is my helper. I will not fear. What can man do to me? Remember those who rule over you, who have spoken the word of God to you, whose faith follow considering the outcome of their conduct. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. Do not be carried about with various and strange doctrines, for it is good that the heart be established by grace, not with foods which have not profited those who have been occupied with them. We have an altar from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat for the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin are burned outside the camp. And there will end the reading of God's word. Thanks be to God for his holy and infallible word. May He help us to understand it and to be able to apply it to our lives. Our text speaks of the food that we have as Christians. This is in sort of an indirect way. We have an altar from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat. So this tells us, it shows us that we have an altar to eat from. It says that we have this altar that even the priests who serve in the tabernacle have no right to eat from. In other words, those that were still leading in the Jewish rituals, the very priests themselves, they could not eat from this altar if they were still in that mode. The implication is clear that it is an altar, though, that we they don't have a right to eat from, but that we do have a right to eat from. There's sort of an elliptical statement here that implies very strongly we have an altar to eat from, they don't. Since it says that the priests of the old covenant do not have a right to eat from it, it implies that we do. And since it says that we have this altar, we, speaking of Christians, then it testifies that we are permitted to eat from it. We have it and they do not. Now this is striking, because the priests in the Old Testament had privileges to eat of sacrifices that the ordinary worshippers did not have a right to eat of. They had more privileges to eat than anyone else. There were sacrifices such as the Passover and all the peace offerings, the vows and thank offerings and the many other offerings that ordinary worshipers could eat from if they met the qualifications. They had to be ritually clean. They had to be professing believers. There's even age indications that are given for when they could come. But there were others that only the priests could eat from. The sin offerings, and especially the offering for sin on the Day of Atonement, were offerings that nobody, including the priests, were permitted to eat from. So here is an altar that we have in the New Testament that is extraordinary because it is food that all are able to eat from, but not the priests of the old. or any of the people that are still in the old covenant that have not come and embraced Jesus as their Savior. Although the Jews may have boasted, you remember that the Hebrews were in a situation that this letter is written to, they were Jewish Christians that were in a situation where they're being tempted to go back to their Jewish ways. And so although those Jews that were their brothers that had not come to Christ may have boasted of all of their beautiful ritual laws and their foods and their feasting and their priests and said, you don't even have an altar. You don't even have a priest. You don't even have these sacrifices for your sin. We're told here we have an altar. We do have an altar that is far superior to theirs. The Hebrews were told that, we're told that. Even though all the rituals of the Old Testament and the elaborate ceremonies are done away in the New Testament, we have spiritual food at an altar that is superior to anything that they had. It doesn't have the outward glory, but it is vastly superior, as we'll see today. The food on this altar is Christ Himself, sacrificed for sinners, who has been sacrificed for sinners. We have been instructed in Hebrews that the altar on which Christ was offered was not a material offer. with gold and made with man's hands in an earthly temple. The altar on which he was sacrificed was an altar not made with human hands, eternal in the heavens. He was no mere ritual sacrifice. He actually went before his Father in heaven. John Owen speaks of how silly it is to think that this refers to an earthly altar. That there's some altar now in the New Testament that we have that is an earthly altar made with man's hands that is superior to the altar in the Old Testament. You know, if that is so, then the Jews were right. Because the altars that these Christians had, and they didn't have altars, but the little worshiping groups that they had in this house and that house, they didn't have all of these ceremonies with the priests and the incense and all of the glory and the glamour. It was very simple and straightforward. Now, men began to erect altars later. But that was against what God had appointed for us in the New Testament. Those altars don't compare with the altar that they had in the Old Testament. If we're going to have an earthly altar, then go back to Judaism. That's a better place for it. God appointed it there. And you see, we have something, though, that is far better. Those churchmen, so many of them, who erected altars in Christian churches, they're to be blamed. They're to be mocked for their foolishness of bringing something so inferior when we have something that is so superior. We're also instructed in Hebrews that this New Testament sacrifice of which we partake is the only sacrifice that can take away our sins. All those ritual ones don't do it. We are told in this book of Hebrews that God prepared a body for Christ. And the Son said, I have come to do Your will, O God. And when He said that, He took away all those ritual sacrifices, and He brought in a new and living way by His own blood that was offered. And it was actual physical body and blood, His body and blood that was offered, but it's presented to God not on an altar made with man's hands on earth, but in glory before the Father. It was one offering that perfected forever those who come to God by him. Now, his blood is the blood of the new covenant, and his body is the sacrifice of the new covenant. You know, in the Lord's Supper, this is my body given for you. This blood is the new covenant, or this cup is the new covenant in my blood, shed for the remission of sins. It is the sacrifice that God had in mind all along. The blood of Jesus Christ, the body of Jesus Christ offered for us. He did not, in the Old Testament, God did not allow anyone to partake of the sin offerings. including the priests. That's instructive to us. Why would He not let them partake of the sin offerings? They could partake of other offerings. They could have a portion showing that they had a share in it. Why not the sin offerings? Of all things, you would want to have a participation in that sacrifice. Because verse 11 shows us those offerings were unclean. and they remained unclean. They had to be taken outside the camp and burned, and those who took them out had to go through ceremonial washings because they became defiled just from handling them. Before they could come back into the camp, they had to have all kinds of washing. Christ is different because although He became a curse for us and was crucified outside the camp, He became a curse. He was made unclean by taking on our sins. And although He was crucified outside the camp, because He was righteous, He was received before the Father's throne in heaven as having a sufficient offering that actually took away our sins, so that He was no longer defiled by those sins, because it was accepted as a righteous requirement fulfilled, and all of His people were no longer defiled by their sins. He had purified the whole church of which He Himself is the head. He did not remain unclean. You see, those ritual sacrifices, they remained unclean. And God was showing that those sacrifices did not actually take away sin. God had said, I will provide the sacrifice that takes away sin. He told Abraham that way back before Moses even came along. And the people knew that and they were waiting for God to send the Son that He had promised. So these Old Testament sin offerings ritually covered sin, but they could not themselves satisfy the justice of God. It had to be a human being that was offered, and it had to be a righteous human being. It could be none other than the Son of God. This was shown in those rituals. They symbolically carried the sin away and covered it. But Christ actually carried the sin away for the redemption of his people. He is the superior sacrifice upon which we continually feast. And that's the thing we see here. This eating, the eating that we do is spiritual eating now. It's a different kind of eating. It's not physical eating. It is spiritual eating in the New Covenant. What is spiritual eating, you will say? Well, it is partaking of Christ by faith described by the analogy of eating, under the analogy of eating. The whole idea of spiritual eating is that by faith we receive or we spiritually feed upon, actually receiving nourishment from the benefits that Christ's sacrifice provides to us. John Brown says, it is in plain words are deriving from the sacrifice of Christ the blessings which it is intended and calculated to obtain. the blessings that Christ's sacrifice is calculated to obtain. This we do by belief of the truth, respecting the sacrifice. Believing that truth, we have the forgiveness of our sins, the sanctification of our natures, and the spiritual, favorable intercourse with God as our reconciled Father. We have Him and the redemption that is through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins. We are washed and sanctified. We have access with boldness to the throne of grace. Now Jesus also told us plainly what is meant by eating His flesh and drinking His blood. I have it printed for you on your outline, if you have that, in John 6, 53-55. After Jesus said, Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He then, after saying that, seeing that they were offended, said in John 6, 61-64, does this offend you? What then if you should see the Son of Man ascend where He was before? It is the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, who gives life. The flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, spiritual is the idea, and they are life. But there are some of you who do not believe. Okay, so we receive these benefits, we eat them, we feast upon them by looking to Him in faith. That's how we obtain the blessing. That's how we eat. Jesus said that we must believe so that we actually receive the benefits or eat that He has procured for us. We do not receive them. the gross thought by sinking our teeth into his flesh and sucking his blood, that would be a reprehensible abomination. As Augustine wrote, if the saying be perceptive, either forbidding a wicked action or commanding to do that which is good, it is no figurative saying. But if it seems to command any villainly, villainy or wickedness or forbid what is profitable and good, it is figurative. So in other words, if God tells you to do something that is reprehensible, it must be figurative. If he's telling you to do something that is a good thing, then you take it in the more, not in a symbolic way, a figurative way. He goes on this saying, except you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. John six fifty three seems to command a villainous or wicked thing. It is therefore a figure and joining us to communicate in the passion of our Lord and to lay it up in dear and profitable remembrance that his flesh was crucified and wounded for our sakes. When Jesus said he was returning to heaven, when then, if you should see the Son of Man ascend where he was before, it is the Spirit who gives life. When he said that, he was indicating that his physical body, by which we receive the benefit of salvation, would not be on earth. for us to eat of or to drink of in a physical way. It's horrifying that they were thinking in those terms when he said, unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood. And he made it clear, I'm going to be in heaven. I'm going to be there when I'm going to the father. It is the spirit that gives life. It is a spiritual eating. You see, he made this clear that we should receive the benefit of his sacrifice by the Holy Spirit. It is the spirit, he says, that gives life. The flesh profits nothing. One could eat his human flesh and drink his blood physically, perish the awful thought. One could do that if he was here. It would not benefit them at all. The benefit comes when we receive life from his sacrifice, his spiritual sacrifice. His physical sacrifice is it is a physical sacrifice, and it is the source of life and salvation by the Holy Spirit. We receive it in the way that we need it, not to nourish our stomach, not to put in our mouth, but we receive it spiritually for our salvation, for our souls, for the salvation of our souls. Okay, well, having settled that, let's now take some time to consider how helpful this analogy of eating is to us. God has provided this analogy for a reason. because we need it. He uses the analogy of eating because we have a hard time connecting with how do we receive the benefits of Christ's sacrifice. Well, you feed upon it. That's the analogy that's used. It's a physical analogy of a spiritual feeding. And you've got to get this in your head. I know some of you, when I was preaching on the Song of Solomon, you had a hard time. It seemed like, oh, it's talking about marriage, and even the marriage bed is a picture of our relationship with Christ. And I kept telling you, it's illustrating a spiritual thing with a physical thing. And this is the same way. We need to understand this. It's very, very important. But you see, we need this kind of analogy because it's hard for us to understand our relationship with God unless we have things to connect us to it that we're familiar with here in our material world. Because we're fallen, and we're defiled by sin, and we don't have that natural communion with God that we would have had when God first made us. We struggle to understand, identify. So God's given us analogies all through scripture to help us understand. And we need to see them as analogies. Let's look at three ways the analogy of eating helps us then. Okay, this is how it helps you every day. This analogy of eating the sacrifice of Christ. First, we know that eating depends on God's provision of suitable food. God created us as creatures who are dependent on food. We have to eat in order to live. He has also provided us with all sorts of food. What if God created us creatures just like we are that need to eat and there's no food? He forgot to create food. Where would we be? We wouldn't have lasted very long, would we? We would have starved right away. He taught us from the very beginning that we're dependent upon him. for our sustenance, our physical sustenance. Over and over again in the pages of the Old Testament, we see him teaching his people through physical food. When they were sinning, he would withhold physical food. And they would realize, oh, we're dependent on God. And they would call upon him, they would repent, they would turn back to him, then he would give them food again. It was this merciful way of preserving Israel, because they never would have kept following him if he hadn't done that. They would have been just like the other nations. So he did things like that to using food. And we have them in the wilderness and, you know, what are we going to eat? And he sends manna down from heaven. I'm the one that gives you food. And he says, when you go into the land, you're going to have food in the ordinary way. But don't forget, it's by me that you have your food. OK, so this is true of physical food that we're dependent upon it. How much more of spiritual food? How much more do we depend on God to provide us with spiritual food? He is the one who provides us with the spiritual food we need, in particular Christ who was crucified for us. The only way we can have forgiveness, the only way we can have the new life of obedience and service to Him, the only way we can have true fellowship with Him is through the food that He provides, feeding upon that food. which is Jesus crucified. We cannot nourish ourselves, but we must look to him to nourish us. As with physical food, so with spiritual food. John Brown speaks of how we rejoice with the Lord in this provision of his for us, for our nourishment and growth. I was really pleased with John Brown on this, his commentary on this portion of Hebrews. Brown says, We are seated spiritually at the table of a reconciled divinity, a reconciled God. We feast on Him. That which sanctified His justice, magnified His law, glorified all His perfections, and gave Him perfect satisfaction, the sacrifice of Christ, is that which quiets our conscience. It deals with our guilt, transforms our nature, makes us new creatures, rejoices our heart. We find enjoyment in that in which He, our God, finds enjoyment. He finds enjoyment in Christ's sacrifice, so do we. Our fellowship is with the Father, John Brown says. We hear Him saying, as it were, in reference to the sacrifice of His Son, I am fully satisfied. God says that of his son, sacrifice. I am fully satisfied and our souls echo back, so are we. Isn't that a beautiful thing? God says, I am fully satisfied with him. And we say, so are we. I am too. He says, this is my son in whom I am well pleased. And we say, this is our savior. and He is all of our salvation and all of our desire. So the analogy of eating helps us to understand how God provides for our spiritual needs just as He does for our physical needs. We absolutely depend upon Him and we rejoice in the provision that He gave us. A second thing we learn from the analogy of eating is that eating well is necessary for good health. Okay, this is where the rubber really meets the road as far as our lives every day and how we live. If we stop eating physical food, we're going to become weak, and we will soon die if we stop eating. This is also true of spiritual food. Those who do not feed upon Christ crucified are spiritually dead, and those who neglect this food will be spiritually unhealthy. If we neglect Christ, if we do not read and take in His Word, if we neglect the preaching of the Word and do not actually feed on His Word when we're under preaching, we have to feed on it. We don't just sit under it, we have to feed on it. Actually take His truth into our lives so that it nourishes us, so that it quiets our consciences, so that it transforms us. We will not flourish in our comfort, in our obedience, or in our delight in Him. We know with our physical eating that we will not be healthy if we eat food that is spoiled or poisoned. It will make us sick. This is equally true with our spiritual food. How often do we find ourselves on the brink of temptation in life? OK, we're just going along minding our own business and temptation comes, pops into our life. Right there it is. How often are we there? There is the temptation and all of its deceptive glory calling to you. like the seductress in Proverbs calling to you and saying, come and feast upon me. Come and have what I have to offer you. You will find great pleasure here or you will avoid that which you do not like if you come and do what I am presenting to you. There is the man with his porn. He's on the brink of temptation. There is the woman with her dreams of romance. There is opportunity to get rich in an unlawful way that takes advantage of other people. There is that task that I really don't want to do just now that will ease my conscience to get another task that is presented to me to avoid doing that task. Maybe it's even a good task to avoid doing the one that God really wants me to do. Like going to my brother, or serving my brother, or going to him when I've wronged him, or whatever it might be. There is that desire to give into my fear when I have opportunity to boldly testify of Christ and His salvation. What am I going to feed on? Am I going to go and feed on that fear? Am I going to embrace that fear and avoid testifying? Or am I going to feed on Christ and go and do what He's called me to do? You see how this works? Where am I eating? Where am I eating? What am I eating? There is that entertaining video when I ought to be praying and reading God's Word. I'm on the brink. There I am in the morning. I've set aside a time to read God's Word and to pray. And there's something on my phone that I really want to look at. Instead of going to God's word, where are you eating? What are you eating? What is satisfying you? There is that harsh word that comes on my tongue when someone did something to me. Maybe it's my own spouse. Maybe it's my parents. Maybe it's one of my children. That harsh word. And I want to let that word out. I'm on the brink of temptation. Where am I going to feed? Am I going to feed on that harsh word? On the devil's food? Or am I going to go and feed on Christ? That's where we are, you see. What will you do when you're on the brink? Feast on Christ by doing His will? By looking to Him for strength in His sacrifice? Or will you feed on that sin, that fear, that selfish anger? You know what will happen from the analogy of eating. If you feed on Christ, and you see, you do this over and over. If you feed habitually on Christ, you will grow stronger and stronger because you're eating healthy food. If you feed habitually on what is not Christ, what is harmful, what is poison, you will grow weaker and weaker in your walk with Him, and you may even become completely paralyzed and have to be brought on life support. If you feed on the flesh, you will be spiritually weak and unfruitful. If you feed on the spirit, you will be strong and healthy. A third thing we learn from the analogy of eating is that eating requires effort. It is not automatic. We don't think about it sometimes, but consider all the effort that we expend for our physical food. I mean, put it all together. We have other people that serve us in that effort, but there's all kinds of effort that goes on. Seeds must be gathered and planted. The ground that the crops are in must be prepared for the seeds, and it must be then tended, and weeded, fertilized, whatever, watered. The crops must then be harvested. Likewise, animals that are brought up for food must be nourished, cared for, and raised. Then they must be milked or slaughtered, as the case may be. Then our food must be preserved, and it must be delivered. Then it must be prepared for eating. We cook, we prepare, we cut, we make it ready for eating. And then we must eat, and after that, we must wash up. We don't typically mind this effort, whether we do it ourselves or whether we pay others to do part of it, because we enjoy eating. And unless we're sick, we're greatly motivated to eat. We're driven to it by our hunger and our appetite. That's physical eating. We very much want to eat, unless we're sick. Spiritual eating also requires effort. We have to set out a course for our nourishment. We have to be deliberate about it. God has commanded us to observe a holy convocation on the Lord's day, to assemble ourselves for worship and the means of grace. We must plan our work around his day so that we can keep the day holy to him. He calls for a morning and evening sacrifice each day as we rise and we look to our Lord in the morning and as we retire and look to him in the evening. We are to pray, we're to praise him, we're to receive his word. Although this ought to come easy for us, it is often not so. And you know it. Even though we want to be faithful and know that we should, too often we do not have an appetite for spiritual food the way that we have an appetite for physical food. We are spiritually unhealthy. This means that it requires much more effort for our spiritual eating than it does for our physical eating. It helps to think about the danger of spiritual impoverishment and about the unpleasantness of having a guilty conscience, of having broken communion with God when we don't feed on Him, of a poor witness that we have to unbelievers, or the sin that we might fall into, we might ruin our lives by sin and our reputation, or the chastisement and the detrimental effect that our spiritual impoverishment will bring, that it'll have a terrible effect on our children. You know, we're feeding on the world instead of Christ, what's gonna happen? It's gonna affect our children, don't think it won't. We're feeding on our laziness instead of Christ, what's gonna happen? Sometimes as Christians, we act like we expect spiritual nourishment to come without effort or sweat. If it's spiritual nourishment, it's just supposed to zap me. It just happens. There it comes. God is the one that does it. We talk about the sovereignty of God in a wrong way. God is sovereign. But we have a responsibility and a calling from Him. The truth is, it requires more effort than sweat, and sweat than our physical eating. You must address yourself to it, and you must labor. It is not enough to sit in church. It is not enough just to read a passage of Scripture and to say a prayer if you expect to be spiritually nourished. You must engage with these things to be spiritually nourished. Nourishment only happens when you're actually taking in the benefits. This is why the Lord tells us specifically, uses this analogy of eating. It's not just presenting yourself, it's actually receiving nourishment from these things. If you're not receiving nourishment, you're not eating. You're not eating your spiritual food. If you sit on a cornfield, you will not be nourished. You have to take the corn, you have to harvest the corn, you have to prepare the corn, you have to eat the corn. It doesn't just come automatically from sitting in the field. You must eat, you must take it in. As Jesus said, take heed how you hear. It matters how you hear. And so brothers and sisters, we have an altar where we have a right to eat. The Lord has provided us with the best spiritual food of all. His son sacrificed for our sin. If we would have the blessing of spiritual life, eternal life, forgiveness, sanctification, and fellowship with God, we must eat. Expend the effort and this food will satisfy you. And this food will make you flourish in the Lord. John Brown speaks of the privileges we have at our altar, where unlike the people and even the priests of old who could not eat of the sacrifices for sin, we made of the sacrifice of the new covenant. Brown says, you are permitted daily, hourly, without ceasing to feast on the sacrifice of the incarnate son of God. who suffered, the just one in the room of the unjust, who gave himself an offering of a sweet-smelling savor in the room of the sanctified ones, in the place of the sanctified ones. That's what Brown says. Our Lord says, eat, and you shall live. It's quite a promise, isn't it? Eat, and you shall live. You shall live abundantly. So eat, my dear brothers and sisters, see that you eat. Please stand. Oh, Lord, our God, how thankful we are that we have an altar. an altar that you have provided for us in the new covenant that is so superior to the altars that they had in the old covenant. There was one in this place and one in that place. There was always a central altar. There was the tabernacle in the wilderness, and then that fell, and then there was another tabernacle, and then there was a temple, and then another temple. And Lord, we have this altar that you have provided for us now that is eternal in the heavens. They had one priest after another, the high priest would come, and sometimes he would sin and be taken out, like Aaron's sons did, and all of them died. But we have Christ, the one who is priest after the order of Melchizedek, who lives forever, and whose sacrifice never loses its power. The sacrifice upon which we feast, we feast on Him. He is our living Lord and Savior and our Redeemer. And as we go through life, we come on the brink of temptation all the time when we're ready to. Are we going to eat here? Are we going to eat there? And we pray that you would help us to go to Christ, that we would feed upon him all through life. We pray that we would expend the necessary effort that is required to do that. It doesn't come automatically. It's something that we have to labor in order to receive the blessing that you have for us. It is freely given by you, but it is your command to us, as we've seen in Hebrews over and over again, that we are to endure. that we're to persevere, that there is to be labor expended. And so we pray, Lord, that by your grace that we would labor. We remember how Paul said that by the grace of God, I have labored more abundantly than they all. And we pray, Lord, that we would know your grace that enables us to labor, and that we would spend ourselves in this way. Father, truly, you have spent yourself. You have given your Son. You have spent all for us. And we thank you that this sacrifice that you have provided is a delightful one, O Lord. Though it is a terrible and gruesome thing that he should bear the curse, it was a wonderful and marvelous thing at the same time. And we thank you, Lord, that when we come and look upon this feast that we have been given, this this savior that has been provided for us, that you look upon him and you say, this is my son in whom I am well pleased. And we look at Him and we say, He is the delight of our soul. And we pray, O Lord, that You would help us to live that way, that we would live that way before You. You've been so kind and so gracious to us to provide these things for us, and we need them so desperately. O Lord, wake us up to see that. Wake us up and help us to spread this to other people around us, to help them, Lord, to see their great need. as well, that they may partake of the fatness of your house. Oh, father, thank you so much for your provision. We have no provision but that which you have given us. Help us not to go feasting on the scraps that can never satisfy the things of this world. Oh, father, set our affection on the things above where Christ is exalted at your right hand, reigning forever and ever. The king of kings, the lord of lords, the returning lord who will come in glory. with all His holy angels and bring us into His Father's house forever and ever to be His bride in that house forever and ever. How we thank You, Lord, for the hope that we have. Fill us with hope. Fill us with joy. Fill us with fullness through the feasts that You have given us. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen. we proclaim receive the blessing of the Lord, our God, the one who came for our sins, who was crucified and who was raised again for our justification. What a what a glorious savior he is. And now. May the Lord supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. Now to our God and Father be glory forever and ever. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.