Our Scripture reading this morning is from 1 Corinthians chapter 10. 1 Corinthians chapter 10. We're going to start at verse 14. In the first 13 verses, the apostle points out how many in Israel were brought through the Red Sea and they drank from the rock and they ate the manna, but they were not God's people and they worshiped idols. And so he's warning them as Corinthian saints to learn from them and to flee from idolatry. That's where we pick it up. 1 Corinthians 10 verse 14, Wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry. I speak as to wise men, judge ye what I say." And now he's going to apply it to the Corinthians, how they need to flee from idolatry in their unique circumstances as a church in the city of Corinth. Verse 16, the cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? Yes, it is. For we being many are one bread and one body, for we are all partakers of that one bread. Behold Israel after the flesh, the Old Testament nation, are not they which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar?" And the word partakers there is the same word used in verse 16 for communion. Are they not communers or fellowshippers of the worship at the altar? What say I then, that the idol is anything, or that which is offered in sacrifice to idols is anything? But I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils and not to God. And I would not that ye should have fellowship," same word, communion, with devils. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils. You cannot be partakers of the Lord's table and of the table of devils. Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than He? So far we read God's holy and infallible Word. We're going to look at some of this language as it helps us understand what is happening at the Lord's Supper and when we partake of the Lord's Supper. We turn in the Catechism now to Lourdes Day 29. It's on the basis of this passage of Scripture and the basis of many passages that we have the teaching of Lourdes Day 29 of the Heidelberg Catechism found on page 17 in the back of the Psalter. Lourdes Day 28, remember, talks about Jesus said, this is my body. This is my bread. You eat my body and you drink my blood. This is my blood. You eat my body and you drink my blood. Question 78, do then the bread and wine become the very body and blood of Christ? Not at all. But as the water in baptism is not changed into the blood of Christ, neither is the washing away of sin itself, being only the sign and confirmation thereof appointed of God, so the bread in the Lord's Supper is not changed into the very body of Christ. Though, agreeably to the nature and properties of sacraments, it is called the body of Christ Jesus. Why then doth Christ call the bread his body and the cup his blood, or the new covenant in his blood? And Paul, the communion of the body and blood of Christ. 1 Corinthians 10. Christ speaks thus not without great cause. Namely, not only thereby to teach us that as bread and wine support this temporal life, so his crucified body and shed blood are the true meat and drink whereby our souls are fed to eternal life. But, more especially, by these visible signs and pledges to assure us that we are as really partakers of His true Body and Blood, by the operation of the Holy Ghost, as we receive by the mouths of our bodies these holy signs and remembrance of Him. And that all His sufferings and obedience are as certainly ours, as if we had in our own person suffered and made satisfaction for our sins to God. Beloved congregation, when it comes to the Lord's Supper, one of the questions that I like to ask the catechism students is this, is Christ really present at the Lord's Supper? Is Jesus really present at the Lord's Supper? And that's the same question I could ask you this morning. Is Jesus present at the Lord's Supper? You see, it's a common misperception that while Roman Catholics and Lutherans believe in a real presence of Jesus at the Lord's Supper, that those who are confessionally Reformed do not. In fact, if you talk to someone who is a little unguarded, they might say, of course we don't believe in the real presence of Jesus at the Lord's Supper. That's Catholicism. But the fact is, We do. The answer to the question is, yes, Jesus is really present at the Lord's Supper. But the more important question is this, how is Jesus present at the Lord's Supper? And this is where we need to emphasize spiritually. Jesus is present at the Lord's Supper spiritually, not physically. and we partake of Jesus at the Lord's Supper spiritually, not physically. Let us be clear. Jesus does have a real human nature, even now. But in his glorified human nature, in his body and soul, Jesus is now in heaven. And with regard to his human nature, his body and soul, he will remain in heaven until the last day, when he will come again with the angels on the clouds of glory. But nevertheless, Jesus is really present at the Lord's Supper. At the Lord's Supper, Jesus truly feeds us with His own body and His own blood. But this needs to be understood spiritually. That's what I emphasized at the catechism, students. These are the things that we consider in the preaching this morning. We take as our theme, Christ's real presence at the Lord's Supper. We look at three things. First, the proper understanding. Second, the real partaking. And third, the glorious comfort. Is Jesus present, really present, at the Lord's Supper? There are a number of different ways in which this question has been answered. In fact, this was a huge controversy at the time of the Reformation, which is why the Catechism itself spends three lengthy Lord's Days instructing us on the proper understanding of the Lord's Supper. The teaching of the Roman Catholic Church is that Jesus is present physically at the Lord's Supper, and that a person at the Roman Catholic Eucharist actually eats the physical body and drinks the physical blood of Jesus. The Roman Catholic Church teaches that in the Lord's Supper, when the priest gives his blessing upon the bread and the wine and consecrates them, that the bread and wine mysteriously change into the very body and blood of Jesus Christ, the physical body and blood of Jesus Christ. This teaching is called transubstantiation, transubstantiation, meaning that there is a crossing over, a trans, a crossing over from one substance into another substance. According to the Roman Catholic Church, when a person partakes of the Lord's Supper and he puts that piece of bread in his mouth, Even though what he chews on tastes like bread, feels like bread, looks like bread, and smells like bread, what he is actually biting his teeth into is in fact no longer bread at all, but the actual physical human flesh of Jesus Christ. And what he is drinking is no longer wine, but the actual physical blood of Jesus Christ. According to Roman Catholics, the body and blood of Christ, together with the soul and divinity of Jesus Christ, is truly, really, substantially contained in the elements of the Lord's Supper. And what Rome will emphasize is that when Jesus instituted the Lord's Supper, He said, this is my body. And to take Jesus' words figuratively would be to make Jesus a liar. Well, congregation, none of what the Roman Catholic Church says here makes sense. First of all, as to his body, Jesus is in heaven. We already emphasized that in the introduction. As to his body, Jesus is no longer here on earth. Second of all, it needs to be clear that when Jesus instituted the Lord's Supper in the upper room, Jesus was speaking figuratively. And you see that in many places. Jesus says, I am the door. That doesn't mean that Jesus is an actual physical wooden door that swings on a hinge. He's speaking figuratively. Jesus says, I am the true vine. I am the bread of life. These words are not meant to be taken in a literal physical sense. Third of all, just think of what Jesus was doing when He instituted the Lord's Supper. He was holding a piece of bread and He Himself was physically there in His flesh and blood with His disciples. And Jesus ate the bread and drank the wine. Are we to somehow imagine that when Jesus instituted the Lord's Supper, there was blood that left his veins and filled the cup, and that Jesus was drinking his own blood and eating his own flesh while he was in the upper room? Fourth of all, the fact is, in the Lord's Supper, the bread still tastes like bread, looks like bread, smells like bread, and feels like bread. The point is, if it was a true transubstantiation, then the bread would actually feel like flesh and smell like raw flesh and taste like flesh. We could say during His earthly ministry, Jesus performed miracles that were kind of like a transubstantiation. He turned water into wine. Remember what the people said when he performed that miracle? They didn't say, still tastes like water, feels like water. No, they said, this is the best wine we've ever had. That's, you might say, transubstantiation, changing from one substance to another. And besides all this, the whole way of thinking, of the Roman Catholic Church is wrong, because a sacrament is not the thing itself. A sacrament is a sign and a seal. It's not the actual thing that's being signified. Just like in baptism, the water in baptism does not turn into the blood of Christ, because baptism is a picture and a guarantee. It's a sign, a picture, and a seal, a guarantee. And that's the same thing in the Lord's Supper. The bread and wine do not actually change into the flesh and blood in the Lord's Supper. And I emphasize this because this is the emphasis of question and answer 78. Do then the bread and wine become the very body and blood of Christ? Not at all. But just as the water in baptism is not changed into the blood of Christ, neither is the washing away of sin itself, being only the sign and confirmation thereof appointed of God, so the bread in the Lord's Supper is not changed into the very body of Christ. Though agreeably to the nature and properties of sacraments, it is called the body of Jesus Christ. I'll have to say more about the view of the Roman Catholic Church in the second point of the sermon. The Lutherans fall into fundamentally the same error as the Roman Catholics. The Lutherans do not teach transubstantiation, they rather teach consubstantiation. And the word con means with. And what this simply means is the Lutherans teach that while the bread and the wine do not actually cross over and change into the body and blood of Christ, yet The actual flesh and blood of Jesus Christ are there. They suddenly appear on the scene, and you have the flesh and blood of Christ in and with and around the bread and wine. Consubstantiation. With and in and around the bread and wine, you have the literal physical flesh and the literal blood of Jesus Christ. And again, what the Lutherans emphasize is that when Jesus instituted the Lord's Supper, He said, this is my body. Those words need to be understood literally. The Lutherans would say in the physical sense of the word. The congregation, that is simply mishandling the words of Jesus. And besides, if Jesus meant those words literally, then He meant them literally. And what the Lutherans do is kind of make a third category as if Jesus is speaking, well, half literally and half not literally. The point is, Jesus didn't say, my body is in and with and around the bread and wine. He said, this is my body. So it's either His body or it's figurative. It's to be understood sacramentally. And then the Lutherans get into the whole problem of explaining how it's possible, how Jesus, who is a man, can be in many different parts of the earth at one time when the Lord's Supper is being administered. And then you have their false teaching of the ubiquity of Jesus Christ, and they get into all kinds of doctrinal problems. Then in the opposite ditch, you have Roman Catholics and Lutherans on the one side, and you have Zwinglians on the other side, named after the reformer Ulrich Zwingli. And the Zwinglians approach the matter by saying, Well, Jesus is not really present in the Lord's Supper at all. The Lord's Supper, they say, is simply a memorial. That's the popular view among evangelicals today. If you come across a non-denominational church, this is probably what they are teaching. So what these evangelicals will teach is that the Lord's Supper is merely a memorial. You are simply being reminded of what Jesus did 2,000 years ago. There's no communion with Christ, there's no feeding, eating and drinking of Jesus Christ at the Lord's Supper. Many evangelicals won't even talk about the Lord's Supper as a sacrament anymore. They talk about it as an ordinance, but they don't talk about it as a sacrament because to them it's not really a sacrament. It's not a sign and a seal. It's only a sign. It's only a picture. It's not a seal. Well, all of these approaches, the approach of Rome and the approach of Luther and the approach of modern-day evangelicals are wrong approaches to the Lord's Supper. The proper approach, which takes the middle road and keeps the proper balance of things, is the Reformed approach. And the Reformed approach, which is the biblical position, is this. Christ is really present at the Lord's Supper. Against modern-day evangelicals and Zwingli, we insist that Jesus is really present at the Lord's Supper. The Lord's Supper is not just a memorial, but Jesus is there, and we commune with Him, and we feed on Him. But then against Rome and against Lutherans, we insist Jesus is not present physically, but He is present spiritually. As to His human nature, He is absent from us, as He said He would be. He's going away. Because as a true man, Jesus' human nature is limited. He cannot be in many different places at one time. And right now, He is in heaven. But as to His divine nature and by His Holy Spirit, He is ever present with us. And at the Lord's Supper, Jesus promises to be present with us, communing with us, and nourishing us with Himself. This is why we read 1 Corinthians 10 this morning. We're not going to get into a big treatment of 1 Corinthians 10, we could, but there are a few things that we need to point out about this very significant passage. It's a key passage for understanding the idea this morning. Notice 1 Corinthians 10, verse 16. The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? And those are rhetorical questions. What's implied is, yes, they are. At the Lord's Supper, we are communing with, we are sharing with, we are participating in the body and blood of Jesus Christ. You are communing with the body and blood of Jesus Christ. When you drink the cup and eat the bread, the word commune there, communion, means you are sharing in, you are taking of, participating in the blood and the body of Christ. Then, if you keep reading in 1 Corinthians 10, Paul's making a point here. You read what Paul has to say now about partaking at a pagan feast. because Paul says basically it's the same thing at a pagan feast. There were people from the church in Corinth who were going to pagan temples, eating with pagans, and eating at feasts, eating at suppers that were meant to honor an idol god. And these people were saying, some of these people, because they struggled with pride, they were puffed up with knowledge, many of them, and many were saying, it's not a big deal. We know that an idol is nothing. We know that meat is meat and it doesn't change anything if it's been offered to idols. And what Paul says is, yes, we know that. But when you actually go to these pagan feasts and you participate in their meals, you are having communion, fellowship with devils. Notice verses 20 and 21. But I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils and not to God. And I would not, I do not want, that ye should have fellowship with devils. And the word there is the word communion, fellowship, same word. And the point is devils are there at the meals, at the supper table where these feasts are being held, at the meals of the idol worshipers. Devils are there and you are communing with them. They are spiritually present there. And the parallel is true as well. At the meal of the Lord's Supper, it's not a pagan feast, it's a holy feast. But it's the same idea. At the meal of the Lord's Supper, Jesus is there. And you are communing with Jesus. He is spiritually present there at the Lord's Supper. His body and His blood are there. You are communing with the body and blood of Christ. He's really there at the Lord's Supper. He's not there physically. He's there spiritually, just like devils are there spiritually at the feasts of these pagan worshipers. So the Lord's Supper is not just a memorial, but at Lord's Supper, we are communing with Jesus. When we partake of the wine, we are partaking of Jesus Christ. And when we partake of the bread, we are partaking, we are... That's the same word, too, at the end of verse 18, partakers. It's the same word, the same root word in verse 16, 18, and 20. meaning communion, you are taking Christ to yourself. But now I think a very real and important question comes to us, and the question is this, why such strong language? Why that language, this is my body? Why the language, this is the communion of the body and blood of Christ. Or as the Belgian Confession puts it, we eat his flesh and drink his blood. That's the language of Jesus in John chapter six as well. We are not, the Belgian Confession says, we are not when we say that what is eaten and drunk by us is the proper and natural body and the proper blood of Christ. Why such strong language? It sounds confusing to us, we're not used to that. Well, without going into the second point of the sermon, we'll have to talk about this a little bit more then, but what we can say already now is this, we use this strong language because this is sacramental language, and it's emphasizing the special nature of what a sacrament is. It's not just a memorial feast, but Christ is really present sacramentally in the Lord's Supper. There is a sacramental union between the bread and the wine on the one hand, and the body and blood of Christ on the other. There's a sacramental union. And I think the best way to explain this and understand this is by comparing the Lord's Supper with the preaching, because it's the same thing every Sunday in the preaching. When you look at the preaching as a physical, earthly thing, what is preaching? When you look at preaching without considering the spiritual aspect of preaching, you just strip it down to the physical earthly thing, what is it? Preaching is nothing but a man standing behind a pulpit right now speaking. I'm just a man speaking words. It's all that's going on here. And if you would strip it down to that, but you see the point is that's not the full picture of what the preaching is. But in the preaching, in true preaching, Christ is there, Christ is here, and he is speaking. He is present by his Holy Spirit bringing his word. This is the chief means of grace, Christ imparting himself to us. So there's something special in the preaching, in the official preaching of the gospel by Christ through the church, there is something special. So through the preaching, the Holy Spirit works faith and confirms faith and strengthens us spiritually. We eat and drink Christ through the preaching. Because in the preaching, Christ is giving Himself to us. And when we describe the preaching, we can use very strong language. In the preaching, Christ is speaking to us. It's not just a man. It's Christ speaking. Jesus says, He that heareth you, heareth me. And he that despiseth you, despiseth me. So we don't talk about the preaching as if it's some merely earthly thing. We talk about it understanding right away what it is from a spiritual point of view and how God uses it from a spiritual point of view. And now the point is, you have the exact same thing with the Lord's Supper. When you look at the Lord's Supper and you strip it down to just the earthly, physical thing, what are the sacraments? What is the Lord's Supper? It's nothing but eating bread and drinking wine, that's all. But you see, the point is, that's not the full picture of what the Lord's Supper is. Because at the Lord's Supper, Christ is there. And just as Christ has set aside the preaching as the chief means of grace, so He has set aside the Lord's Supper as another means of grace. So that through the Lord's Supper, even though with mere earthly eyes, all we see is bread and wine, and just like in the preaching, all we hear is the words of a minister, and it's vibrating our eardrum, and that's all that it is from an earthly point of view. Spiritually, there's more. If we're spiritually alive and quickened, we know that there's more going on at the Lord's Supper. Christ is there. And that's why we use the strong language. We use the strong language understanding these realities. We eat the body and blood of Christ because we're emphasizing this reality. Christ himself has made a connection, a union between the bread and the wine, and Himself, just as there is a connection between the voice of the minister and Christ Himself. And just as we eat the bread and drink the wine, so by faith we commune with Christ and we eat Christ and we take Christ, we drink Christ to ourselves. So this is sacramental language. We use such strong language because there is such a close connection between the sign and the thing signified. Christ is very really present at the Lord's Supper. He is present spiritually. So that's the proper understanding. Now, all of this leads us into the second point of the sermon, the real partaking. Well, how do we partake of Him? And again, I want to compare the proper biblical view with the wrong views. The Roman Catholic view basically says this, if you are eating the physical bread and drinking the physical wine, you are blessed automatically. It's almost like if you are simply here in church, your body's in church, and you physically hear the preaching, you're blessed. You're blessed because you're actually eating the physical body and drinking the physical blood of Christ. And according to the Roman Catholic viewpoint, that's what you're interested in. Because somehow if you eat his body and you drink his blood, his physical body, his flesh and his blood, you somehow get grace. As if grace is found in Jesus' body itself and His blood itself, and merely in the physical eating and drinking, you can receive grace. As if salvation is something you can digest with your physical stomach. You know, there are some people who even have this kind of view. That if I was standing underneath the cross of Jesus Christ when He was crucified, and a drop of blood landed on my arm or on my head, I would somehow be blessed and receive grace. A congregation, that's a very earthly and unspiritual way of thinking. According to this view, even if you are unregenerated, still spiritually dead, and you don't have faith, and you come to the Lord's Supper, you can still receive grace and be blessed. And it's a completely unbiblical, unspiritual, foreign way of thinking, and it's very superstitious. It's really the same thing with Lutheranism. There's superstition involved. Same thing, if I could eat the physical body of Jesus and drink his physical blood, how would that actually benefit my soul? My soul. If anything, it's only going to benefit my body. And the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ are going to pass through my digestive system and end up in the toilet. Or something magical happens. And that's where you get superstition. And we are not superstitious, beloved. There are deep, mysterious truths, but we are not superstitious. The way we need to understand it is like this. Jesus is really spiritually present at the Lord's Supper, and we partake of him spiritually by faith. It fits. Jesus is our meat and drink unto life eternal. At the Lord's Supper, He's present with us spiritually. And at the Lord's Supper, He imparts Himself to us spiritually, by His Holy Spirit, through faith. As the Belgian Confession puts it, faith is the hand and the mouth by which we take Christ to ourselves. As the Belgian Confession also puts it, This feast is a spiritual table, not a physical table, a spiritual table at which Christ communicates himself with all his benefits to us and gives us there to enjoy both himself and the merits of his sufferings and death, nourishing, strengthening, and comforting our poor, comfortless souls by the eating of his flesh, quickening and refreshing them by the drinking of his blood. Well, now here we come again to that strong language. Why this strong language? Well, because the whole purpose of the Lord's Supper is for Christ to build us up spiritually and strengthen us spiritually, strengthen our faith. And so at the Lord's Supper, using this strong language, what Jesus is telling us is this, I give my body for you. I give my blood for you. Eat. my body and drink my flesh." But he doesn't mean physically, he means spiritually. And what Jesus is really emphasizing is this, I think this is very helpful, it's helpful for myself. Jesus says, look, I became flesh for you. I came in the incarnation, born of the Virgin Mary. I became flesh for you. And I became blood for you. I became flesh and blood for you. I became a real man. And what did I do in that flesh? And what did I do in that blood? I took that flesh and I took that blood all the way to the cross. And I endured the breaking of that flesh. And I endured the shedding of that blood on the cross as your substitute. And during the death and the punishment that you deserved in your body and soul, for your sins. I, who am God, come in the flesh. I did this. My body was broken, my blood was shed, and in my body and soul I endured the agonies of hell so that the debt of your sin might be paid and that you might be restored to eternal life. And at the Lord's Supper, at the Lord's Supper, what Jesus is now saying to us, here I am spiritually at the Lord's Supper. Take it, take it all, take my body, take my blood, take my sacrifice on the cross, take my life, my perfect righteousness, take my atoning death, take all of me, all my benefits, because I gave it for you. It is yours. I am yours. All that I am is yours. Eat it and drink it. Take it to yourselves. Spiritually do this. Take it into your innermost being for all that I am is yours and you are mine. All that I am, my righteousness, my wisdom, my holiness, my love, my whole life, I give it to you. And having me, you have eternal life. And that's how the sacrament works. Jesus uses the bread and the wine to direct our attention to those spiritual realities, to direct our faith to Him. And so, just as you take that bread and wine to yourselves, and you eat that bread, and you drink that wine, and you assimilate it to yourselves, and you do so by faith, looking to Jesus Christ, so also, Jesus imparts to you himself, and his spiritual riches unto you, and he strengthens your faith in him. You are eating Christ. You are partaking of the benefits He purchased for you through His broken body and shed blood. And in that sense, you are eating His flesh and drinking His blood, taking Him to yourself. Because spiritually, you're taking these benefits that Christ obtained for you through His broken body and shed blood. And you see, there's a special union, a sacramental union between the elements of the Lord's Supper, the bread and wine, and Christ. Christ has instituted it so that there is that special union. These are holy signs, the catechism says, not because of anything in them, but because Christ has set them apart. That's how they're holy signs. He set the bread and the wine in the Lord's Supper apart so that He might use them to direct us in our faith to Him and strengthen our faith by them. It's the same thing that happens through the preaching. It's not automatic. It doesn't just happen physically, that I hear the right words, the vibrations hit my eardrum the right way, and now I'm blessed. But it's a spiritual reality. It happens spiritually by faith. And there's a connection between the preaching and enjoying Christ. Through the preaching, through the preaching of Christ by faith, we enjoy Him and His benefits. And just so in the Lord's Supper. And now what we do need to add is this, there is something about all of this that does surpass our understanding and cannot be comprehended by us. That's what the Belgic Confession says. Now, as it is certain and beyond all doubt that Jesus Christ hath not enjoined to us the use of His sacraments in vain, so He's not going to leave us empty, but he's going to use the Lord's Supper truly, he's truly going to use it. So he works in us all that he represents to us by these holy signs. Though the manner surpasses our understanding and cannot be comprehended by us, as the operations of the Holy Ghost are hidden and incomprehensible. In the meantime, we err not when we say that what is eaten and drunk by us is the proper and natural body and the proper blood of Christ. But the manner of our partaking of the same is not by the mouth, but by the spirit through faith. Now really, you can say the exact same thing about the preaching. In the preaching of the gospel, we are eating Jesus' body, drinking His blood. Through the preaching of the gospel, through the preaching of Christ crucified, we take Christ to ourselves through faith, the hand and mouth of the soul. And we enjoy and come to enjoy more and more the benefits of what Christ accomplished through His broken body and shed blood. The Holy Spirit takes Christ as He comes to us through the preaching and gives Christ to us and applies Christ to our hearts and lives. And now, the Lord's Supper does not stand above the preaching as if at the Lord's Supper, that's where you really eat Christ and drink Christ. No, but the Lord's Supper comes alongside the preaching. And baptism comes alongside the preaching. And as a sacrament with the elements of bread and wine, and with the activity of eating and drinking, the Lord's Supper more fully declares to us. the promise of the gospel, namely, that He grants us freely the remission of sin and life eternal for the sake of that one sacrifice He accomplished for us on the cross. That's the real partaking. That leads us into the third point of the sermon, the glorious comfort. As the last part of answer 79 puts it, By these visible signs and pledges, he assures us, by his spirit, that we are as really partakers of his true body and blood by the operation of the Holy Ghost, as we receive by the mouths of our bodies these holy signs in remembrance of him. And that all his sufferings and obedience are as certainly ours, as if we had in our own persons suffered and made satisfaction for our sins to God. eating the bread, drinking the wine at the Lord's Supper, we are assured that we are also just as much the spiritual partakers of Jesus' true body and blood and of what he accomplished and obtained for us through his death and resurrection. The Lord's Supper tells us in a very powerful way that I am so united to Christ that I am bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. Christ tells us that just as much as the bread and the wine enters our stomachs and becomes assimilated into our physical bodies, and we enjoy strength from it, just so spiritually, we enjoy that same kind of union with Christ. We take Christ to ourselves. He imparts himself to us, so that the union between us and Christ is this intimate. So that we are one flesh with Christ. So that it is just as if we had in our own persons been there on the cross and suffered and made satisfaction for our sins to God. And what is the glorious comfort imparted to us knowing that truth? The glorious comfort is we know our sins are forgiven. Jesus, the only qualified mediator, fully God, fully man, perfectly righteous, the only one who could atone for my sins, did atone for my sins. I have a share in Jesus the Christ. The preaching tells me that. Let the preaching tell you that this morning, child of God. You have a share in Jesus Christ. Your sins are forgiven. You have peace with God. You are the child of God. All things are for you and nothing shall separate you from the love of God. You have a share in Jesus. Go home rejoicing in that. The preaching tells you that, and the sacraments come alongside and tell you the same thing. You have a share in Jesus. And because I have Jesus, I have peace with God. As great as my sins are, as many as my sins are, as weak and exhausted as I come to church Sunday morning, and I've battled hard against sin, I have a share in Christ, and he won't let me fall all the way. He will keep me. As great as my sins are, as many as my sins are, Christ calls me to fellowship. And that's the Lord's Supper. It's the same way. He calls me to come to the Lord's Supper. And at the Lord's Supper, along with the preaching, he says, you are a partaker of me and all my benefits. By faith you have me, and having me, you have peace with God. God, the maker of heaven and earth, the righteous and holy judge. I have peace with God through Christ, so that God is not just the God, He's my God, my Father, and my friend, my Jehovah. And He so cares for me that He even gives me the preaching, and He gives me the sacraments to strengthen me, to live unto Him, to walk in His ways. He supplies me with all my needs. Believe it, congregation. understand God's provision, how He keeps us in this deliverance from our sin and misery, and praise God and bless His name. Amen. Let us pray. Our Father, we thank Thee that by Thy Spirit we understand Thy provision and Thy love for us Thy care for us in every way so that even we understand how week by week and at the Lord's Supper, Thou does tend to our needs and encourage us. Lord, we thank Thee for making us partakers of Thy Son, Jesus Christ, working within us a true and living faith. And we pray, Father, that we might go home exalting in the truth that we have a share in Christ. In His name we pray, amen.