Well, I was torn as I was preparing for this sermon. I had a sermon out of Acts prepared, and then I thought, well, since we're so close to Christmas, maybe we can do two Christmas sermons, as well as the Christmas Eve meditation. Thought better of that and came back to plan A. So we're back in Acts for one week before we take a little one-week respite to think about Advent and the Christmas season and the coming of Christ. And so we are, in case you've forgotten, we are in Acts chapter 19. And we'll finish up chapter 19 today. It's Acts chapter 19, verses 21 through 41. I'll ask you to stand in honor of the reading of God's Word, as always, and urge you, as always, to listen carefully and to take to heart what is written. Concentrate now. Don't let this be a dead time, because the reading of God's Word is a means of grace to God's people, as much a means of grace as the preaching, and because this is, indeed, God's very Word. Now after these events, Paul resolved in the spirit to pass through Macedonia and Achaia and to go to Jerusalem, saying, after I've been there, I must also see Rome. And having sent into Macedonia two of his helpers, Timothy and Erastus, he himself stayed in Asia for a while. About that time there arose no little disturbance concerning the way. For a man named Demetrius, a silversmith who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought no little business to the craftsmen. These he gathered together with the workmen in similar trades and said, Men, you know that from this business we have our wealth. And you see and hear that not only in Ephesus, but in almost all of Asia, this Paul has persuaded and turned away a great many people, saying that gods made with hands are not gods. And there's danger not only that this trade of ours may come into disrepute, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis may be counted as nothing and that she may even be deposed from her magnificence, she whom all Asia and the world worship. When they heard this, they were enraged and were crying out, great is Artemis of the Ephesians. So the city was filled with the confusion, and they rushed together into the theater, dragging with them Gaius and Aristarchus, Macedonians who were Paul's companions in travel. But when Paul wished to go in among the crowd, the disciples would not let him. And even some of the Asiarchs, who were friends of his, sent to him and were urging him not to venture into the theater. Now some cried out one thing, some another, for the assembly was in confusion, and most of them did not know why they had come together. Some of the crowd prompted Alexander, whom the Jews had put forward, and Alexander, motioning with his hand, wanted to make a defense to the crowd. But when they recognized that he was a Jew, for about two hours, they all cried out with one voice, great is Artemis of the Ephesians. And when the town clerk had quieted the crowd, he said, men of Ephesus, who is there who does not know that the city of the Ephesians is temple keeper of the great Artemis and of the sacred stone that fell from the sky? Seeing then that these things cannot be denied, you ought to be quiet and do nothing rash, for you have brought these men here who are neither sacrilegious nor blasphemers of our goddess. If, therefore, Demetrius and the craftsmen with him have a complaint against anyone, the courts are open, and there are proconsuls. Let them bring charges against one another. But if you seek anything further, it shall be settled in the regular assembly. For we really are in danger of being charged with rioting today, since there is no cause that we can give to justify this commotion." And when he had said these things, He dismissed the assembly. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever. Please be seated. I don't know how many of you have seen the movie Patton. It's one of my favorite war movies. And one of my favorite scenes in that movie is probably one that most people have forgotten, even those who've seen the movie. It's a scene where they are, Patton's army is moving rapidly through Europe and he's pressing for them to get to Berlin as quickly as they can. And he won't tolerate any delay, but there are different kinds of delays that are frustrating to them. And one of them at one point There is a traffic jam with supply trucks and trucks with troops and artillery. They're going in different directions and they've come to this intersection and there's been rain and it's muddy and they're stuck and one line wants to go and the other line wants to go and they're blocking each other and it's just a log jam. General Patton comes and he sees this and it's just mass confusion and people are fighting in the mud in the middle of the intersection. And he gets in and he just jumps in and immediately begins to direct everything and restores order and gets the lines moving quickly. And General Bradley shows up and watches him for a while and chuckles to himself, you know, George would have made a great traffic cop. But he got the lines moving and there's the restoration of order. What I love about that scene is the picture it is of what the gospel brings to the world. What we see here in this passage, and I believe one of the reasons why Luke included this story, this narrative in the Gospel of Acts, is to make the church aware of what it is that we're doing in building the kingdom of God and bringing the gospel to the world, and of the difficulty that's involved in that because of the world's resistance and the chaotic nature of that resistance. Luke sort of draws the curtain back for us to see what's really involved in what we face in the battle that we do with the world in bringing the gospel to the nations. We face chaos and what we're doing when we bring the gospel is nothing less than what God did at the beginning when he looked at that chaotic world in Genesis. the chaotic waters and the earth without form and void and the waters churning and just this chaotic mass. And he begins by saying, let there be light. And he begins by saying, let there be a separation between the water above the earth and the water below the earth and a separation of the dry land from the water. What's he doing? He's bringing order. to that chaos. And what the scripture indicates to us again and again is that salvation and redemption are a recreation. That what happens in salvation is exactly the same as what happened in creation. It is a repetition of that bringing of order into chaos, the chaos that is brought about by sin and rebellion against the God of order. And so what I'd like for us to do is we look at this passage and ask the question, what can we learn from it about dealing with the world's opposition to the gospel? What do we learn? What perspective do we gain from looking at this passage? And as usual, I'd like for us very quickly to see three things. First, I'd like for us to see this, that we must perceptively recognize the insidious motivations for the world's opposition. We must perceptively recognize the insidious motivations for the world's opposition to the Gospel. You know, when I think about this, I think about lots of things. You can use lots of illustrations of this. I hope there aren't any corn farmers here in the congregation today because you might be a little rankled at what I say, but I think nevertheless it's true. I think about the ethanol debacle, the ethanol boondoggle in our country. We pay taxes that go to the government subsidizing the production of ethanol. in order to add it to our gasoline. And supposedly, the rationale for that was, this is gonna help the environment, and we need to do this for the environment. The truth is, and it's been confirmed, and there is really no doubt about it, there isn't really any room for debate, that it actually is worse for the environment to run ethanol in our cars. It is not cheaper, even though the ethanol gas is cheaper. The reason it's cheaper is because of the government subsidies, by the way, which you pay for through your taxes. So it's not that you're really paying cheaper prices for gas. And it actually, to produce the ethanol, pollutes the environment more because we're using pollution-producing machines to produce the ethanol, and it ends up that it is much worse and more expensive to use ethanol. So why do we continue to do it? Well, we continue to do it because when these arguments, these debates, to the degree that they ever come up in Congress or had, they're suppressed. Why are they suppressed? Not because these things aren't true, but because there's an underlying motivation for politicians to support the reduction of ethanol because there's a lobby at work. There are people who contribute. vast sums of money to the campaigns of these politicians in order to persuade them to pursue a policy that really is harmful, harmful in very discernible ways to their constituents. But there's an underlying motivation, you see. The motivation isn't what's on the surface. It's not the debate of whether ethanol is good for the environment and whether it's really accomplishing all these things. It's really these underlying motivations. of, well, you know, this is going to result in money for me and my re-election and these things. And this has multiplied many times. It's not just ethanol. This is why we're frustrated with politics, why we're frustrated with politicians. in many ways, but you see that underlying motivation is what needs to be addressed because when this is being debated on the floor of Congress, if you just debate whether or not it's polluting the environment or helping the earth or whatever, you're not really getting to what's really going on. You're not getting to the real root cause of the advocacy or lack thereof of this policy. And what's important for us is to realize that that's what's going on when we bring the gospel to the world. It's not simply a matter of, well, is it true that Jesus died for our sins, that Jesus is God, that Jesus rose from the grave? These are important questions. We need to be ready to defend them. But we also need to realize that the people to whom we're talking are motivated by, in their resistance to the gospel, by some insidious underlying things that are going on. For instance, when Christ calls people to the gospel, he calls them to repentance. And repentance is often repentance from things that people are reluctant to give up. If I follow Christ, there's sin that I cherish that I might have to abandon. Actually, if it's sin that I will definitely have to abandon if I want to follow Christ. That's often the problem. As we talk to people, that's really often the issue that needs to be addressed. And many times the way that we present the gospel is so generalized and not personalized enough that we don't put our finger on those things. This is why it's so important, and this really speaks to this, this principle speaks to this, why our evangelism as a rule, not exclusively, but as a rule needs to be with people that we know. that we encounter regularly so that we can actually address the real issues in their lives and our preaching the gospel to them doesn't have to be in terms of these generalized principles that we really don't understand what's going on with this person. The gospel must be as a rule communicated in relationship, in the context of a relationship with people. That's why it's so important That you have an evangelistic ministry in your spheres of influence with non-Christians in your spheres of influence. And that you're building relationships with those non-Christians. That you're relating to them enough to know what's really going on in their lives so that you can address the real issues. You know, I think about Jesus when he went to the Gadarene demoniac, he went into the region of the Gadarenes and how he cast the demons, a legion of demons out of a man who's been terrorizing the countryside. I've mentioned this several times because it always comes back frequently to my mind how amazing it is that after After Jesus does this, after He removes this terror from the people in this region, and they see this man who was formerly mad and running around breaking chains when they would bind him in chains and terrorizing people, when he comes to his right mind, their reaction is not, oh, thank you, Jesus, you've done this great thing for us. How can we thank you? You've removed this terror from us. No, their reaction is that they're terrified and that they actually ask Jesus to leave. Why? Because the real problem for so many people with the gospel is that when Jesus enters a life, when Jesus enters a house, he always rearranges the furniture. He always changes. He makes changes, needed changes. Those changes are always better, but our problem is we kind of like the way we have the furniture arranged right now. We don't want to change, and change is fearful. I don't know what exactly is my life going to be like if I make these changes. I'm familiar with my life as it is. When Jesus calls us to change, it's a fearful thing. We don't like that. And the world opposes Jesus because of this. And you see that here in this speech that Demetrius makes. He really talks in terms of, and he combines two of them in one, but he talks in terms of what John says. We come back to this again and again, that triad of what the world is, the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, the sinful pride of life. with the underlying motivation expressed by Demetrius is, look, Paul's telling people that these gods that we make aren't gods. Well, that's going to have an economic effect on us because we make these shrines, we make these images. People don't think they're gods anymore. We're going to lose some money. What's so interesting about it? What's that? Lust of the eyes. Lust of the flesh, because how do I indulge my appetites? With my wealth. So they kind of conflate those two, lust of the eyes and lust of the flesh. But what is lust? Lust is inordinate desire. It's when What is, in many cases, a legitimate desire becomes more important to me than something that God says is more important. And what's so ironic when you look at that is you say, Demetrius, you know, you're listening in to this, and I'm tempted as I'm listening in to think, to say, to shout, you know, wish that I were there so I could shout to Demetrius, Demetrius, is your economic well-being more important than the truth? If these gods really aren't gods, then you're profiting from deceiving people. You're profiting from a deception that is profoundly harmful to people spiritually. You see, that's not what is in Demetrius' mind. It's this underlying motivation of lust. I'm gonna lose my wealth. We're gonna lose our wealth. And that appeal carries the day, doesn't it? They get the point and they react to that emotionally. But you also see the motivation of pride, sinful pride of life. Why? Because it's so funny. In the background of this passage, is, and it's referred to, this image of the goddess Artemis that supposedly fell from the sky. The legend was that the image that was in the temple that was built in Ephesus for Artemis that this image had fallen from the sky. It was divinely revealed. It was divinely given to them. Now, of course, that's ridiculous unless if we watch enough UFO programs about ancient astronauts, we might believe that the ancient astronauts dropped it from a UFO. But that aside, it's ridiculous. But that's what made Ephesus, that was their claim to fame. That was their point of pride. That was what made them famous. Ephesus was famous because Ephesus was the temple of the goddess Artemis and it had fallen from the sky. And so all Asia worships this. And can you see how their identity is tied up with this? Their pride in being Ephesians was tied up in this. And so Demetrius appeals to that pride. You realize that when we talk to people about the gospel, it inevitably attacks the sinful pride of man. In fact, if we preach the gospel faithfully, it cannot fail to do that. Because, and I've had occasion in various Christmas movies as I've been watching those over this season, more than usual, how one of the consistent themes is the basic goodness of most people, of people, that they're really basically good. And that really massages our pride. The only problem with it is that biblically it's not true. That we're not basically good. were it not for God's common grace, His restraining grace, we would quickly destroy ourselves. And the Bible makes that clear in the part of redemptive history before Noah. The earth is filled with violence and God saw that the thoughts of men's hearts were only evil continually. That's who we are. If we're left to ourselves, And to acknowledge that, to proclaim that, is not very flattering to people, is it? It goes right to their pride. And it says, you are not basically good. That's not a very popular message in and of itself to people who aren't very good. They're not going to like that. We need to realize that. It's one reason why when we go to evangelism, as we said during our prayer time, we need to be praying because only God can open a heart to that type of thing. It's why, humanly speaking, it's amazing, it's a miracle that anyone ever comes to Christ. It's a miracle of God. We need to recognize that. It's one of the ways that we recognize, one of the implications we recognize there are these underlying motivations of opposition to the gospel. And so our response must be to be faithful, not to avoid them, but to confront them directly and to pray that God will work in their hearts to enable them to see the truth and to value the truth more than they value The lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, sinful pride of life. Then secondly, we need to see this, that we must judiciously address the intense dynamics of the world's opposition. We must judiciously, wisely, address the intense dynamics of the world's opposition. Now, what's the response to Demetrius' speech, beginning in verse 28 and going through verse 34? What's the response? How do we sum it up? Well, you see what we've talked about in the theme of our service today. We see the disorder of sin. Here is a picture of what a sinful worldview really does. And we see all of these things today. We see all of these things. Everywhere we see rebellion against God, we see these things. We see an irrational confusion. It says the whole place was confused, and people are shouting one thing, and other people are shouting another thing, and most of them don't even know why they're there. Well, that's the world today. I hate to get political all the time, but I watch a lot of CNN and Fox News and you can't avoid it. It's just confusion. It's just people and you start to address issues with facts and try to address them reasonably and what you encounter so often in our discourse is just emotion, just emotional response. And one of the things about emotion is you cannot combat someone who has been captured by the emotion of a position with reason and logic. You can't do it. You'll always lose. And that's why what you need to do is withdraw and tactically approach in another way. Because you can't do it. And you see that here. You know, we see a malicious hostility. They're dragging these companions of Paul, they drag them into this arena, presumably to do them harm, bodily harm. I don't think they're going to have a trial there because, as the town clerk points out, there are other methods. There are proconsuls, there are courts. They don't bring them to court. Presumably they're going to string them up right there because they're so emotionally consumed by what Demetrius has said. So it results in malice, hostility, violence. We see that today, don't we? We even see political leaders calling for violence against people who disagree with her positions politically. We see violence that is applauded today. And we see malice towards those who would maintain a conservative Christian approach in our universities, in classrooms where professors are hostile to the faith and who downgrade students who disagree with a pagan worldview and who interpret the data of the Course in many cases much more cogently in terms of a Christian worldview. You suffer malice and you suffer consequences if you do that. And more and more we're seeing it in the workplace with respect to employment. People lose their jobs if they held a Christian position on sexuality now. Is that rational? Is it reasonable? No. Is it reasonable for someone to lose their job because they believe that a man can't simply become a woman by thinking that he is one? Or vice versa? Does that make any sense at all? I think we can all readily admit that it makes no sense. But that's our world today. And you'll face the hostility of the world if you challenge it. But we must challenge it. We're in the business of challenging it. Because as the church, as Christians, we are in the business of proclaiming God's truth, the heart of which is the gospel, so that the world may be saved from the disastrous consequences of following such propositions. We see an emotional recalcitrance here. And what I mean by, if you're not familiar with recalcitrance, recalcitrance is a stubborn refusal to change one's position or one's posture with respect to an opinion or specifically with respect to an action that is clearly wrong. A recalcitrant person is a person who will accept no criticism of what they're doing or thinking and refuses to change. And that's what we see here. You know, here various people are trying to say something. The Jews even put forth Alexander. And what's interesting about that is Alexander, I believe this Alexander, he's put forth by the Jews. And the Jews in Acts are those who oppose the gospel. And so I really think it's not just the Jews, just some ethnic Jews. I think it's talking about the Jews who are really opposed to the gospel. They put forth Alexander. We don't know what he's going to say. It's probably providential that he didn't speak because he might have spoken against these men. They're being traveling companions of Paul. But what's interesting is the crowd, when they saw that he was a Jew, They wouldn't let him speak and they just spoke and shouted, Great is Artemis of the Ephesians for two hours. Can you imagine that? I mean I can't even imagine that in our political discourse today. Two hours they shout again and again, Great is Artemis of the Ephesians. Why? Because the Jews were known to be someone that the Romans had given an exception to. You know, they were known to be hostile to idols and what they regarded as idols, and so the Romans said, okay, all right, you don't have to, we're not going to make you do what you consider idolatry, because they'd been proving themselves so stubborn in not submitting to pagan religions. that they were sort of given an exception. And everyone knew, in fact, Jews were really despised by a lot of the Roman citizens precisely because of this. So when they knew there was a Jew, and they're thinking the whole reason they're there is because someone's insulting our great goddess Artemis. Here's a Jew who wants to speak to us. We're not going to let him speak. Why let a Jew speak? Great is Artemis of the Ephesians. But what does that reflect? You see this attitude of recalcitrance. You say this is an idol, we're not going to listen no matter how reasonable it is to arguments that these things aren't real. Maybe it's an idol, but it's our idol. And we're going to champion it, we're going to defend it no matter what. An emotional recalcitrance. This is what we face. When we come to the world with the gospel, it's a very telling, it's a very accurate picture of what we face. So what are the implications? How do we apply this? Well, we see that Paul wants to go in and speak to them, and we might think, well, why? His friends, people, Asiarchs, that's some of the political leaders who are Paul's friends. Maybe they've been converted to Christ. They say, don't go in, don't go in. And we might think, well, gosh, you know, I'm surprised that God doesn't somehow intervene and Paul go in and make a great speech and all kinds of people are converted. Why isn't that the end of this story? Well it's because, I think, it's because what God wants us to see is that often the best case when we're facing emotion, like we said just a few minutes ago, the best case is a tactical retreat. or to realize that certain contexts are not the best context for the proclamation of the gospel. Sometimes, when there's strong emotion, when these insidious motivations are rearing their ugly head, when there's such momentum against the gospel, the best thing to do is to wait and come and fight another day. and to realize that there are certain forums that are not good forums to talk with people about the gospel. They're simply not. We're playing an away game in many instances. We don't have the advantage In fact, we have such a disadvantage that people can't, humanly speaking, hear the gospel because they're doing this. And as long as they're doing this, there's no way you can get through to them. And to try to fight that, stubbornly to try and fight that, is not wise. That's why I worded this the way I did. We must judiciously address these intense dynamics. We have to be wise. Wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Realize that's not a place I can really fight this battle effectively. And so I'm going to wait and I'm going to fight it over here. Or I'm going to wait for a different situation. Or I'm going to wait until there's not a crowd against me and everybody's shouting me down and I'm going to talk to people individually. Or whatever it is that I have to do. But Paul took the advice. He said, no, they wouldn't let him go into that situation. Because the only thing that could happen was that Paul would be harmed. I think that's instructive for us. We have to assess and we have to react and we have to choose our battles. We have to address these dynamics wisely. But then finally I want us to see this, that we must thirdly, shrewdly appropriate the political provision against the world's opposition. We must shrewdly appropriate, that is take advantage of, apply the political provision against the world's opposition. Now, one illustration of this, of this principle, I think, we see in World War II. We know, I'm sure most of you are familiar with the fact that during World War II, we established an alliance, the United States and Great Britain, with, and France, with the USSR with the Russians. And the Russians had been allies of Hitler until Hitler turned against them and invaded their country. And so then they said, well, OK, so I guess we're enemies. So the United States and Great Britain accepted Russia's help. Now, that was very helpful. It was, in fact, essential in overcoming Hitler, because had he not had to fight on two different fronts, He might have been able to develop the atomic bomb before we did, and they were working on it, and he might have been able to develop V-2 rockets to the extent that they could deliver those atomic weapons before we could. It was very strategic. And yet, you know, I think people who were in the know in the United States understood that the Russians weren't virtuous. They were not our allies because they were principally opposed to what Hitler was doing and world domination. They wanted world domination themselves. But it was a strategic alliance. We realized that despite the Russians' shortcomings, they were useful as an ally in this situation, and so the alliance was made. But on the other hand, there were unwise decisions that were made in relation to that alliance. The Russians were allowed to go into Berlin, certain parts of Berlin, Roosevelt allowed them to go into Berlin before us and so they got all of the Germans' research into atomic weapons. And that's what allowed them very quickly, we enjoyed the sole possession of nuclear weapons for a while but not for very long because They went in and got the Germans' research, and they were able very quickly, very soon after, to develop their own nuclear weapons. And we know what happened after that. Constant threat of the Cold War. That was unwise. There was an unwise confidence in our allies, the Russians. Well, let's let them go in first. Let them have the, you know, they've suffered so much from the Germans, so we'll let them. No, that shouldn't have been done. It was an unwise use of that alliance. And I think in many ways that is instructive to us about how we as Christians relate to the state. The state and government are given by God for a certain purpose. What is that purpose? to restrain evil. Paul makes that clear in Romans 13. And we see that in Acts. We see Paul making use of government officials, government officials who keep him from being unjustly imprisoned and flogged. And we saw that earlier in the book of Acts. And Paul invokes his Roman citizenship to cause the officials to come and escort him out of jail. You remember that. earlier in the book of Acts. And so Paul is accessing the legitimate functions of government to restrain the evil that is expressed in opposition to the gospel because the government is there to restrain evil. And you see that here. Paul doesn't, and the Christians don't have any other resource, but you see the city clerk. And how is this confusion and this hostility dispersed? It's dispersed by the city clerk who threatens them with charges and rioting. And that's a good thing. It ends up rescuing them, really. And so, yes, what we do is we accept the providential statecraft, that is statecraft that is an expression of the legitimate purpose for which God has established government. We point to legitimate things, legitimate law, righteous law. And we invoke that as Christians. And when we suffer persecution, it's right for us to invoke that and to use government in that way for what it's meant to, in the way that it's meant to be used. But then A is resisting naive statism. And here's the temptation. What you see here in the speech The very first part of the speech of this city clerk is what? Accommodation to the idolatry around him. You know, he talks about the image that fell from the sky, and he says, we all know that this is all true. It can't be denied, and everybody knows this, so there's no threat here because we all know that this is really true. What is that? An official endorsement of idolatry. Well, that's not good. But why do we see this? Why is this included in the passage? It is so that we will not have a naive dependence upon the state rather than upon God. In a fallen world, human governments will be affected by sin. And this is what has been the problem in much of Christian's approach to politics. in the past. We've sought to establish the kingdom of God, I fear, and many have made this critique, to establish the kingdom of God through political action. That will never establish the kingdom of God. We don't rely on the state. Ultimately, we depend upon God. And our approach to politics must always keep first things first. It's not that we don't seek to establish righteous laws and be involved in politics. We should. You know that's my position. You've heard me talk about it many times. But it must always be in this order. We don't seek to establish righteousness, true righteousness, through the law and through political action because we could pass all the righteous laws in the world and it wouldn't change a thing if the hearts of the people are not changed. If we somehow managed to manipulate things so that we all passed all Christian laws, we really wouldn't change anything. Because the hearts of the people would remain the same. The order must be that people are converted. They're converted to Christ. It is the gospel that changes society. It's not statism. The temptation is to think that, yeah, we'll use government, we'll force people to do what's right. The problem is that we got the wrong people in charge, but if we could just get in charge, we could change everything. No, no, no, no! It's the gospel that changes things. It's the gospel that changes society. It's being converted to Christ. and people acknowledging Christ is Lord, that's what changes people. And that's why if you're exercised about political activity, that's not a bad thing. But you need to ask yourself, am I as exercised about communicating to people the gospel of Christ as I am about those things? Am I as concerned for my next-door neighbor that doesn't know Christ as I am that he become a political conservative? Because it's the gospel that changes people. And once a person bows the knee to Christ, yes, we teach them, this is what righteous laws are. This is what God's Word says about this and that in society. And yes, we ought to work for those things. But not in terms of a naive statism that says we just need to get the right people in office. No. We need to be the church. We need to be salt and light. We need to preach to people. Yes, preach to people. Yes. Announce to people the truth about what the coming of Christ, and particularly at a time like this, at a time like Christmas, that we say Jesus Christ came into the world for a very specific purpose. It was to give His life and to seek and save those who are lost. Last night, I was at the McPherson's for our caroling party. I didn't go caroling, so I just didn't feel like walking around this year for obvious reasons. So I sat back by myself at the house. And I watched, once again, one of my favorite Christmas specials, the Charlie Brown Christmas special. And you may think that's a little childish, but it's really not childish at all if you've ever watched that, because the climax of it is where Charlie Brown cries out, can't somebody tell me what Christmas is all about? And Linus says, I have the answer. I know what Christmas is all about. And he walks out on the stage, and the spotlight gums on him. And he tells the Christmas story from Luke. There were, in that same country, shepherds abiding in the fields, watching over their flocks by night. And the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone around about them. And they were sore afraid. And the angel said to them, fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which will be to all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. That's what Christmas is all about. That's what people need to hear. That's what they need more than anything else. And to the degree that that grips you, to that degree you will be effective in changing the world. And I'll ask those who are serving at the table to come forward. Because that's what this table is about. We proclaim the Lord's death until He comes. Why? Because we're just morbid and we love death? No. We proclaim the Lord's death because it's through that death, through that humiliation, that glory comes. That sacrifice, that humiliation is the path to glory. And when we come and we participate in this supper, that truth is powerfully conveyed to us. It's powerfully impressed upon us. It's why this sacrament is so important. Why the sacraments themselves are so important. God uses them to seal to us, to confirm to us the reality. of these things. And when we eat and drink, we partake in Christ's death. We are taking hold of Christ and all that that death meant for us. Death to sin and resurrection to new life. Atonement for sin. And I'm saying I'm part of that. And Jesus is in me and I'm in Jesus. So I invite you as you come to embrace those truths once again. If you're a believer, you have embraced those truths, but in this way, there's a powerful reaffirmation of those things in our lives, and that's a means of grace to us. If you're not a believer, if you haven't committed yourselves to those truths, this table is not for you, because what you will do if you eat and drink is you will call down upon yourself what God brought in Christ and what's symbolized here. If your faith is not in Him, then He's not your substitute, and you're covenantally calling these things down on you. You're calling these curses down on you. So I tell you, if you're not a believer, do not come and eat and drink. But even if you haven't been a believer before, it may be that God is calling you to Himself in Christ right now, and that you now understand that your only hope The only hope for your sin is Jesus Christ and what He has done for you as your substitute. And if that's true, then come and for the first time in your life experience communion as it's meant to be, communion in its fullest sense and what it really means. And take officially to yourself Christ as you take and eat and take and drink. I invite all of you to come and once again experience the gospel as you feed on Christ in your hearts. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for this sacrament. Thank you for what it means. And now I pray that as we take it once again that it would not simply be bread and wine that we eat, but that it would truly be by faith a partaking of Christ and that we would experience His presence here by your grace, transform this experience from an ordinary one to something sanctified and something holy. and make the gospel real to your people once again, that we may be equipped and strengthened and encouraged to build your kingdom, to serve you well. We ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Those of you who believe, what do you believe? I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried. He descended into hell. The third day He rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From there He will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen. The night in which Jesus was betrayed, He took bread. When He had given thanks, as we already have in His name, He broke it, and He said, this is My body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of Me. And after supper he took the cup and he said, this cup is the new covenant in my blood which is poured out for many for the remission of sins. Do this in remembrance of me. And he said, all of you, drink of it. So now I, ministering in his name, invite you to the table of the Lord where Jesus is the host. and where he invites all of us to come and enjoy with him sweet fellowship, a covenant meal in which our union with him is sealed and confirmed and all of the blessings thereof seal to us. So come, come and eat and drink and be blessed.