Knowing God is Peace

Download Audio

A sermon by Adam Barcott

December 08, 2019

Good morning! Glad your worshiping with us today, let’s prepare our hearts by confessing and then receiving absolution. I was thinking all, most of my Christian life, I knew how to ask God for forgiveness and say, God, forgive me. And then I kinda just had to believe that I was forgiven. So what I like about the confession/ absolution is there’s two parts to it. You say you’re sorry, but then you hear the voice of God. The actual word of God announce forgiveness in Jesus Name. God says, for my son’s sake, I forgive you. And a lot of times we forget that part of confession. Beyond assumption and subjectivity, absolution is objective, hear the actual voice of God say, yeah, I forgive you.

So let’s do it together. Saying most merciful God, we confess that we are by nature sinful and unclean. We have sinned against you in thought word and deed by what we have done. And by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart. We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We justly deserve your present and eternal punishment. For the sake of your son Jesus Christ. Have mercy on us. Forgive us, renew us, and lead us so that we may delight in your will and walk in your ways to the glory of your Holy name. Amen. Almighty God in his mercy has given his son to die for you and for his sake forgives you all your sins. And as I called and ordained servant of Christ and by his authority, I therefore forgive you all your sins in the name of the father and the son and the Holy spirit. Amen.

Let’s take a moment to receive that. You are forgiven. You haven’t loved him like you ought to, but but you’ve confessed and he has forgiven you. And now we get another chance today, another time to engage his love. Lord continue to apply this faith and this forgiveness to our hearts by the work of your Holy spirit. In Jesus name. Amen.

Have a seat. Our Scripture readings for today are found in Romans, Matthew and Isaiah. we’re going to be looking at the book of Isaiah for the next, three weeks through Christmas. God has been consistently revealing himself and his plan to save the world since the beginning which will bring great peace to us today.

Lets begin by reading Romans chapter 15:4-13 found on page 553 in the Bible’s provided.

Romans chapter 15,

Romans 15:4-134 For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. 5 May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, 6 that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 7 Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God. Christ the Hope of Jews and Gentiles 8 For I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God’s truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, 9 and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written, “Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles, and sing to your name.” 10 And again it is said, “Rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people.” 11 And again, “Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles, and let all the peoples extol him.” 12 And again Isaiah says, “The root of Jesse will come, even he who arises to rule the Gentiles; in him will the Gentiles hope.” 13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

This is the reading of God’s Word. Thanks be to God.

Now turn with me to Matthew chapter 3:1-12. While you are turning there let me give you some context. Paul recorded a quote from Isaiah and now we will read an interaction between Jesus and the Pharisees where Jesus draws upon Isaiah’s prophesy of the roots of a tree.

Matthew 3:1-123 In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, 2 “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”[a] 3 For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare[b] the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.’” 4 Now John wore a garment of camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. 5 Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him, 6 and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. 7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. 9 And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. 10 Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 11 “I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

The reading of God’s word. So now lets go to book of Isaiah chapter 11:1-10. It’s 332 if you’re using the Bible that’s provided

Isaiah 11:1-10

there shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him. The spirit of wisdom and understanding the spirit of counsel and might the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord and his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what he sees or decide. Disputes by what he hears, what his ears hear. But with righteousness, he shall judge the poor and decide with equity for the meek of the earth. And he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth. And with the breadth of his lips, he shall kill the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist and faithfulness the belt of his loins. The Wolf shall dwell with the lamb and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together.

And a little child shall lead them the cow and the bear shall graze. Their young shall lie down together. And the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the Cobra and the weaned child. She’ll put his hand on the adders den. They shall, not hurt or destroy in all my Holy mountain for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. In that day, the root of Jesse who shall stand as a signal for the peoples of him shall the nations inquire and his resting place shall be glorious.

The reading of God’s word. Thanks be to God. And my prayer is that God’s word would give us a peace that passes all understanding that would guard our hearts and minds. And the Lord Jesus Christ. Father bless us as we, uh, talk about your word. Holy spirit. You are our pastor. You shepherd us and you put the truths of God on our hearts. That same spirit that rose Christ from the dead. You have and you give to those of faith. We are your people. We pray that you would renew us and re make us even now as we gather around your word and your sacrament in Jesus name. Amen.

So in the season of advent, it’s all about waiting. And the themes of hope, peace, joy and love. Today is about peace. And the idea that the words of God the scriptures are bringing to us is that you can know peace by knowing God. Knowledge of the Lord will bring peace inside and outside. So, I have to begin with this idea of astumps and axes. Did you notice in our readings, I dunno if that jumps out to you. It’s very rare that verses that people love like, Oh, I love it when Jesus says the ax is at the root and I’m going to cut you guys off and then throw away all the dead branches. Like I have a fire pit at home and I cut things and I just, I don’t put them in bags to recycle. I put them in my fire pit and every so often I burn. So I could say while I’m trimming the plants, you’re not useful to me and you will burn eternally in my fire pit, which is true. And I’ve come to think of it that way because you’ve gotten too long or you’re dead and now I will burn you forever. I don’t say it like that, but I’m like, Oh, it’s fun. And it’s fun to burn it because I’m making something beautiful, right? So stay with me. The idea that t Jesus is saying the axe is at the root to people who think that they are safe because they are in the lineage of Abraham. Or we have Isaiah. Isaiah is coming at a time when Israel and Judah are fighting with each other, but they feel safe. And Isaiah says, Assyria is coming, has already started to come to destroy them.

And Isaiah the prophet says, um, there shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse. We think of this through Jesus, but think about it from the original audience. And they would say, who are you calling a stump? What do you mean a stump? We are glorious Israel. And there’s this language that God uses through his prophets of stumps. And basically a stump means, yeah, you were once a glorious tree, but God chopped you down Israel. Why? Because they kept trying in their own power to replace God. So they were the people of God becoming this big beautiful tree and in their own strength, they’re going to find peace. They’re going to establish peace. So God grows the tree and then they say, Oh, we’re going to try to figure out, the temptation for all of us is to figure out life.

We’ve been given good gifts. Now we start to be tempted to think, Oh, it’s up to me to make sure it continues to live and It’s up to me to make sure everything’s safe. And so what happens? You start making agreements with neighboring cities for peace. You start worshiping other gods, worshiping idols. Now for us, idolatry always means this. When you are looking to created things to give you something eternal, that’s an idol. So the peace we will continue to look into is an eternal idea. Peace is something you get in the moment and then it’s got you. You have a hard time holding onto peace because you were created to receive peace from God. So when we start thinking, I will finally be at peace in my work, we’re engaging and looking to a created thing to give us something it can’t give us or in a person or in an event.

And so what happens is the people of Israel have built up the system that’s built on them being responsible for their own peace, their own kingdom, and they negotiate deals. And what does God do? He says, you have become a stump of Jesse. Jesse’s David’s father. The greatest King is David. So the line of Jesse is reduced and ground down to a stump because the people of God are trying to find peace without God. They stop believing that he is the reason or the offer for peace. And remember, peace is really, it’s just trying to get stability in your life, right? Peace is a wonderful idea. I mean, it’s stability, it’s order, it’s security.

And it’s nice when you know what’s going to happen and things work how they’re supposed to, but you know…you know the world. As soon as you have peace, something happens, right? That’s how it goes. But if you’re relying on yourself, God cuts it down and he’ll cut you down. But here’s the reason he cuts you down is because once a tree doesn’t produce fruit and it’s dead, it’s good for nothing. And now you’re in a cycle of death. When you start looking somewhere else for peace, you will be in a cycle of death. You’ve seen it in others and we can see it in others very easily. We see it when people make the same mistakes, right? Why are they, why are they doing that again in a relationship? Oh, what’s wrong with them? Why are they wasting their money? Again, we see it in others.

It’s hard to see it in ourselves, but we get in cycles of death where we do the same thing, which produces the same nothing fruit because we’re hoping that we’ll find peace in something this time. But God will cut it down and let you be in your cycle of death until you hear the words of the prophet which says your roots aren’t dead. There’s still a chance for peace. You just have to wait for the shoot from the stump of Jesse and a Branch and from his roots shall bear fruit. So Christians and in our lives we always look dead. It always looks like it’s dying for us because we have this hope of life. So a lot of times our lives look like stumps and the only hope in it and the only chance of peace is this little shoot that comes through, which is Jesus.

Have you ever seen a stump grow something? I have a whole bush now in my yard after the hurricane a couple of years ago I tried to hack the roots of this thing cause it fell. But now I have a nice beautiful tree from it. I mean it came from one shoot out of the side of the stump. And so every time I think to myself, I really need to manicure that. It’s getting out of control. I also think, Oh that all comes from the shoot of Jesse or something. You know? I think biblically it’s kind of fun, but it’s true. And so our lives have been knocked down or they are being knocked down and they will be knocked down. But the shoot Christ comes through because you have the good roots and he says, I want to give you peace. It always looks like it’s dying. You have ground down your life. You have wasted opportunities. But that’s okay. The shoot is there and he restores peace. And when Christ is on a cross, it looks like a failure, but it’s okay. He’s doing something different. So there’s this chance for peace and a chance for us to stop the cycle of death. And he will, and he does. And the way he does it and how we can access this is to know him.

There’s knowledge in who he is. First let’s just, let’s just talk about God’s promises of peace. That’s what Isaiah is doing. He’s, given bad news. Like you guys have tried to go after God in your own way. It’s bad news. But now he’s giving gospel in the form of a prophecy and it’s pretty amazing. He says, here’s who God is. He’s a life giving spirit. The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him. There’s one coming that the spirit of the Lord will rest upon. And we can see in Isaiah, it’s all about Jesus. Unless you know another character in history that describes this, the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him. Spirit of wisdom and understanding, spirit of counsel and might, knowledge and fear of the Lord, the sevenfold spirit of these gifts are upon Christ. And this is by the way, is what you’d want on every kingdom and every leader on everybody who’s in charge. You want a spirit of wisdom, understanding counsel might knowledge, fear of the Lord. Oh, and then his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He won’t judge by what he sees or decide disputes on what he hears, but he’ll judge with righteousness.

So there’s no confusion. When people lie or whatever happens, he will judge from righteousness and faithfulness and even says, I’m the judge, the poor with righteousness and the meek, he’ll deal with equity. And these are ideas where Jesus who comes, who receives the spirit of God, full of wisdom and understanding and knowledge of the Lord. He says in the sermon on the mount, blessed are the poor for they shall receive the kingdom of heaven.

Then he says something about comfort because he says, blessed are those who mourn. I’ll comfort you. I’ll be beside you. Then he says, blessed are the meek. That’s means powerless, that’s us. We aren’t big famous people in this world. We don’t have a lot of resources. Comparatively, we’re weak, we’ve made mistakes, but he says, blessed are the those who mourn, be comforted. Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.

So here comes our King full of wisdom and judging with righteousness because he gives his righteousness with faithfulness and he gives his inheritance. He’s promising poor people who are poor and mourning death, being promised, resurrection and then guaranteed the earth. So poor in spirit gets the kingdom of heaven and the meek get the earth. We get heaven and earth and in between is the comfort of Christ. Isaiah saying, here is your leader. Here’s who God is. He’s promising people who have made a mess of it and he says, I’m sending you this, this leader, but it gets better. But wait, there’s more because this is the inside, peace and love and equity and justice and righteousness, but there’s also an outward working of it because the second part of Isaiah is all this stuff about the Wolf lying down with the lamb and he gets very explicit.

Leopard lies down with a goat. The calf and the lion and the fattened calf together. A Lion will eat a fattened calf, but my favorite is…a little child shall lead them. I love this thinking of all our little, our little sweet babies. Let’s just say it like this. Instead of the nursing child, shall, Pascal and Millie (two babies in our congregation) shall play over the hole of the Cobra. Sound fun? Let’s put your babies over the hole of the Cobra. First let’s find the hole of a Cobra. The weaned child, Theo (another child in our church) shall put his hand over the adders den. This isn’t say, Oh, test me and let’s handle snakes. That’s not what this is saying. It gets very explicit what it’s saying in verse nine they shall not hurt or destroy in all my mountain, in all my kingdom. See what Isaiah is saying is that there’s a King of peace and love and joy and all that, but there’s also a King who can change the earth so that it’s no longer a place of violence and death and destruction to the point where kids can play with deadly snakes and a fat cow can lay down by a lion.

He’s changing both the spiritual and physical condition of the world. This is the promise of who’s coming and builds this beautiful picture, this perfect world of righteousness, justice. This is who God is. This is what he’s doing. And then he says this strange line where in the end of verse nine for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters covered the sea.

This word, knowledge. He doesn’t go from a picture of this. Imagine a great leader and then imagine a whole great world and now get special knowledge and then we’re in. He’s presenting a picture of imagination and longing and wanting peace, and he says, everyone will know the Lord. But you know the Bible. What’s the word? Knowledge mean? When Adam knew his wife Eve, what does that mean? Good. Don’t say it. Intimacy, the word knowledge, the whole earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord is not an academic assent, It is an intimacy. The whole earth shall be in intimacy with the Lord. They will know him. This is the source of all this peace inside and outside and the whole world will know. What kind of leader could change hearts of people? What kind of leader could change the nature of a Cobra? Only the God of all creation. Only the God who knows you. And so peace comes to you because God knows you intimately. And our only shot at having peace is knowing him. And so we’re presented with the idea of knowing God and knowing his peace all the time. And it, it works itself out. The place where it’s the hardest to know God is in the season of waiting.

That’s why this comes up at advent because this promise was made 700 years or more before Christ comes. In fact, the last prophetic idea recorded in Malachi, there’s 450 years before Christ is born. So in the advent calendar, there’s four candles. It represents four centuries of waiting for Christ, 400 years. So you hear about this leader and then you wait four hundred years. The hardest thing for us is waiting as humans because waiting requires trusting. And who’s promising you? It’s really hard. And think about this. Did you know historically the month before Christmas, the colors were black?

So for centuries the time before Christmas looks more like lent, you’re waiting for Christ to come. Then you would celebrate the coming of Christ and actually do Christmas songs after Christmas, Christmas day for the next nine weeks, you celebrate Christmas. But you know what happens? It’s really hard for us to wait. So what did we do? We did what we do with everything. We think we know better. And the culture starts to say, Hey, we can sell some things before Christmas. Why wait after? And now our culture celebrates for a measly four weeks before Christmas. And then after Christmas we have like this new year’s blues of nothing, right? I guess we should all lose weight now. That’s our Christmas celebration. We’ve lost the wonder of expecting because we can’t wait, why? Because why should I wait? I can get things myself.

How many of you have ruined Christmas for somebody because you didn’t believe they were going to buy you that wallet? So you just came home one day and you’re like, Hey I bought that wallet and your wife says it’s five days before Christmas. Why would you do that? I know that boy was me cause I didn’t believe she was going to get it. I thought she’s busy. She’s doing her thing. She hasn’t listened to me. She probably doesn’t really even know me. It’s only been at that point like 17 years instead of 20 something now she doesn’t even know me. I’ll buy it myself. She said, why would you buy anything this month for yourself? I don’t, I don’t know because I don’t believe anyone listens to me or cares and this is why it’s so hard for humans to wait for peace because we just don’t know.

There’s a couple issues. If there is a God, we don’t know if he’s powerful enough to get us the things we want. I don’t think that’s happening in this room maybe a little bit at times, but our biggest issue in this room is we’re just always wondering, does he really care? Like can he care about these little things that I want… So I can’t wait and I’m kind of scared to wait to find out what if he doesn’t, or what if I’m in trouble because I am such a big sinner. I would say that’s what our issue is and the gospel today is God does care for you. You can wait. You’re going to have to wait. But you can’t wait. Know, that he’s powerful. He’s loving and he loves you. In fact, he knows what you’re waiting for. Think about what you’re waiting for. There are little things. We’re all waiting for Christ to come back and set up this perfect world. We’re waiting for world peace inside and out. But what’s something you’re waiting for now? Just something. Maybe it’s a longing of your heart, some hope, and you just don’t think it’s ever going to happen. Well, I want to tell you, the gospel is God knows what you’re waiting for. He knows it. He created you to want it. I know what you want. God says, because I put that desire in you to want peace in some area of your life, and the reason I made you this way is because I have what’s supposed to be there. I have it and I want to give it to you and I’ve revealed to you my son, Jesus Christ. This is the beginning of the longing of your hearts and all the waiting, what you’re waiting for. I’m giving it to you, but you’re still going to have to wait for it to be completely finished, but you can trust God. God says, you can trust me. I know what you’re waiting for. I have it for you because I made you and I made the piece that fits in your heart.

That was an accidental double use of peace. Pretty smart. The piece that fits, and the peace of God. I’m so proud of myself. Not planned, but it’s true.

And so here’s what happens. No matter what you’re waiting for, you know, you think about it, you talk to everybody. No matter where you’re at in your life, you’re waiting. I gotta just wait for things to slow down. Things are so busy. Then as soon as things slow down, just waiting for things to pick up, just waiting for things to pick up, Oh, I’m waiting for someone to make a move. Once they do this, I can do that. Then I’ll feel good. I’m waiting for my sickness to go, once I get over this sickness…I’m feeling too good, but I’m not taking care of myself. I’m just waiting for something to click in my brain to eat right. I don’t know. We’re always waiting. You’re always going to be waiting. We’re always waiting. And that’s where the knowledge of the Lord says, yeah, you’re always waiting because peace has not come perfectly yet. You can’t play with cobras yet.

But that leader with all wisdom and knowledge and understanding, he has revealed himself in Christ to you. He wants to know you and he’s made himself known to you to the point where all over the world there’s these little gatherings around him because he’s says, I want you to know me because I have peace and that’s what you’re longing for for order and stability. You can make plans, you can explore, you can rest, you can relax. God has that for you. He says, I want you to know that I’ve paid for it through my son Jesus Christ. I paid for the peace, your peace to stand before the creator of the universe at rest trusting him. I paid for that and I want you to know me.

[inaudible]

So we do by faith and that’s what we are doing right now to the extent that we get around him. Just like any long distance relationship you get on the phone, I don’t know how kids do it now. I did it back on a phone with no pictures. You write letters, you read letters, you read too much into letters. You read too little into letters. I got a letter once from Val (my wife now) she went to the new a typhoon lagoon at the time. That’s how long ago this was. Typhoon lagoon was brand new and she went with my, with George, my brother-in-law. There was another guy there and she was talking about typhoon lagoon and I was reading this in California going, who is this other guy that she’s hanging out with in a bathing suit? All I can think about it, she’s falling in love with another guy and that’s the beauty of confusion. You can read too much into things and because of our brokeness miss the truth. The truth is, she really likes me. She’s told me that. And I can rest in that, there is a relationship building around trust and waiting. There’s a relationship building. All this was before we were married. We were waiting for a day when we’re married. And then our emotions and our physical bodies, we can all be together all the time and it’s going to be so great. That’s the anticipation of peace. That’s the way God ordered it. In marriage, even with debt, we have to learn to just wait for it. Save up your money. Wait for it. Wait for marriage. It’s fun. There’s anticipation and it’s picturing a bigger reality. We are the people who are waiting for Christ to make it all real. And as you’re waiting with him, he gives the peace. He gives the comfort moment by moment, he’s paid for it and he says, I give it to you. I want you to have peace.

I know what you’re waiting for. Let’s hold hands and cling, and walk into it and wait for it and see how it starts to move or how we’re starting to lose it. And I’ll experience that with you. I want to give you peace. So we’re waiting because we can trust the one who’s made the promise. He’s faithful and just to forgive us our sins. He’s kept his end of the deal. He’s done it so we can trust him. That’s why we say, God forgive us. We’ve had a hard time trusting you. And when we do have a hard time trusting, we don’t wait. Praise God. He is a, he knows how to deal with the poor and how to deal with the unrighteous by giving us his righteousness. And so rest assured where you haven’t waited

[inaudible]

there’s a shoot coming out of that and it’s Christ and he’s forgiven you and he’ll restore your peace right now, right today revealing himself in his word and in his son Jesus Christ in the Lord’s supper. So that’s good news. Knowing God is peace.

Dear Heavenly father, we pray that you would administer this peace to us. Now there’s some elements of it being physical and the bread and the wine and your word being spoken, but our hearts long for peace in a hundred different places. I pray that your Holy spirit would, restore the hope of peace. Restore the truth of your word, which is, we are forgiven and have peace now. Not fully yet, but we have it now and we wait with you. And in you our peace for it to come one day forever and ever. Bless us. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.

So, the opportunity to confess, that’s one of the reasons we’ve been doing the Apostles creed is to confess what we believe because it anchors us in the knowledge of the Lord. We confess that there’s God the father, Jesus Christ, the son, and the Holy spirit. And these three are together one God now and forever. And so if you can, let’s confess with the saints who have gone before us for the last 2000 years. Let’s speak the Apostle’s creed together.

Christian, what is it you believe? I believe in God, the father almighty, maker of heaven and earth and in Jesus Christ his only son, our Lord who was conceived by the Holy spirit, born under the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried. He descended into hell. On the third day, he Rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and sits 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 Christian Church, communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. Amen.

So we recognize that everything is a gift from God. This is an opportunity to give back and say I want my life to be about the work of God on earth as it is in heaven. Just know that, that when we give to the church, we give it to the Lord and his work of the word on earth. And the word is what recreates, the word is what changes people’s hearts and minds. The word can bring people back from the dead. And so we give to the movement of the Lord and we trust the Lord when we give to other charities. It’s a wonderful work. But you’re saying, I think you’re a valuable place because I think it’s valuable. I’ll give to you, which is great. But when you give to the Lord, you’re not saying, I think I’ll give because it’s valuable. You’re saying I give because I can think and move my fingers and everything I have is a gift of God and you are the God of life. So that’s why I’m giving. So as you give, give joyously and recognize that God makes it rain. God provides for the sick, God provides for the brokenhearted. And so we give like that.

Thank you Lord for all that you’ve given us and we give back to you joyously and we pray now as we prepare our hearts and minds for intimacy with you at your table. We ask Holy spirit, apply the word, apply this truth that you do care about what we’re longing for and you do have it. Oh Lord, help us in our weakness. We believe help our unbelief. Encourage us now at your table and we all pray together.

The prayer you taught, your disciples saying, our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day, our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen.

So the night that Jesus was betrayed, he took the bread. He said, this is going to be a new Passover. He took the bread. He says, this is my body, which has been broken for you. I want to pay for your peace.

In the same way he took the cup, he poured it and he gave thanks for it. And he said, this is my blood for a new covenant. I’m making a new deal where I pay for it. You break it and I pay for it for the forgiveness of sins. And then he said, take and eat of it. That’s an important part, right? He invites, there’s intimacy and fellowship with God of the universe and with each other and all who are in Christ Jesus, that you are forgiven for your sins. It’s a reality that we start to engage now and there’s great peace in it. So in the name of the father, son and Holy spirit, Lord, we ask that you would make these things, bread and grape juice on the inside, wine on the outside. You by your word make things different and make things new. We know it’s still bread and wine, but by your word, you promise to be body and blood, uniting us to yourself. And it’s by faith we believe it and we are encouraged. So I pray from this table as we discern your body and your blood, that your Holy spirit would overwhelm us with a blanket of peace. That we could just enjoy it even in this moment and look forward to it forever and ever. Jesus name. Amen.

Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God almighty who was and is and is to come the Whole earth is full of his glory. We praise you and thank you Lord and receive this in faith. Now here are songs as we pick our head up, and we are the people who sing songs to you and enjoy your protection and your provision and Holy spirit move. Move in us today. Some of us, maybe we’re ready or maybe we’re just starting to hope again, but I pray Holy spirit, that you would move in restoring and healing and forgiving and blessing. Thanks Lord. We give you thanks for all these things in Jesus name.

Receive God’s blessing. May the hope, may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing so that by the power of the Holy spirit, you may abound in hope and peace now and forever. Amen.