The Holy Spirit Works – Confidence

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A sermon by Adam Barcott

July 28 2019

Alright, good morning. I am pleased to worship the God of the universe with you. You are a select group of people who have responded to God’s call through Jesus Christ and because of that you’ll be saved. All right, glad you’re here. Let me pray and we’ll worship God. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for your grace and your mercy even in keeping the order of the universe together and that the sun was predictably rising and the birds are predictably singing because you set it all in motion. You feed and nurture and you provide the oxygen. We don’t even have to worry about it. We just presume upon it. We thank you. Yet so much of our lives are un-ordered and we are nervous and scared trying to figure it all out in our humanity and we come to you, God of the universe in the name of Jesus Christ to worship you because you’ve started something in us that is producing life. We bring to you all of our doubts and all of our limited understanding of things and we lay it before your feet. And at the end of the day, we’re just your creatures saying, we believe you, Lord. We love you. We trust that you have life to give. And so we gather around your son, Jesus Christ to worship you. So work in our hearts and our minds today, strengthen us, renew us, do all that good stuff that you do in creating and recreating. We ask in Jesus name. Amen.

So let’s begin with, setting our hearts and minds, right. I’ve found that the best way to do that is just to begin from a place where I don’t have all the answers and You Lord aren’t demanding that I have all the answers to life. And so we pray together this prayer of confession where we recognize our need for God and here his promise to us. So let’s pray together if you can. The prayer of confession.

Most merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against thee in thought word and deed by what we have done and by what we have left undone. And then I get to announce to you as an agent of God, carrying the message of God Almighty. God in His mercy has given his son to die for you and for his sake, forgives you all your sins. Thank you Jesus. We rest in that today and responsed like the angels, by singing some songs about you. So be pleased and enjoy the singing of your sweet children. In Jesus name. Amen.

You may be seated. First reading that we’ll encounter today is from the gospel of Luke.

So turn with me to Luke Chapter 11:1-13. And if you’re following along it is found on page 507 in the Bibles provided. Here the word of God,

Luke 11:1-13

Jesus was praying at a certain place and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray as John taught his disciples and he said to them, Jesus said, when you pray, say this… (It’s a different version of the Lord’s prayer he taught in Matthew because it’s a different time. But you will notice it has all the same elements. So notice the similiarities.)

Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom. Come give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our sins as we ourselves. Forgive everyone who is indebted to us and lead us not into temptation. And he said to them, which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say, friend, lend me three loaves for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey and I have nothing to set before him and he will answer from within. Do not bother me. The door is now shut and my children are are with me in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything I tell you though, he will not get up and give anything because he is his friend. Yet because of his impudence, he will rise and give him whatever he needs.

So because he keeps coming and knocking and won’t leave you alone, you’ll finally get up and give something. Then Jesus says, I tell you, ask and it will be given you seek and you will find knock and it will be opened unto you. For everyone who asks receives and the one who seeks finds and to the one who knocks, it will be opened. What Father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish, give him a serpent or if he asks for an egg will give him a scorpion. If you then who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly father give the holy spirit to those who ask?

This is the reading of God’s Word, thanks be to God. I want you to catch something as we go, we’re in the season of Pentecost. We’re talking about Holy Spirit, (a Baby named Pepper cried right at this moment in the preaching, thus the reference here is to a real mother and child in attendance)

and when baby Pepper cries back there, Megan is trying to give something good because the baby asks. Do you remember this passage when growing up in the church? Ask, seek, knock. God will give it to you. So how many of you prayed for a motorcycle or a hot tub or a girlfriend? Boyfriend. Job. How’s it supposed to work? There’s a line at the end and this is what’s setting us up. What does Jesus say… He says I’m better than a father or a parent? All of you attending to your kids, God is better than you. What does he give?

He gives the Holy Spirit. Did you catch that? At the end of the passage, just to remind you, he says, how much more will the heavenly father give the holy spirit to those who ask him? Because the Holy Spirit is God and whatever life giving thing you need, ask God for the Holy Spirit to give you life and he’ll give you the desires of your heart. He’ll give it to you in the right amounts when you need it, and he’ll keep from you things you think you need that you don’t need. So when we ask, we seek, we knock for the Holy Spirit and the work of the Holy Spirit will lead you to repent. The Holy Spirit will lead you to remember and receive his forgiveness and he’ll do the recreating in you. This is the work of the Holy Spirit we set up. So that’s why we get to ask God for anything and keep asking. Asking for things like this works with evil people. It’ll certainly work with a loving heavenly father, but that’s just our warmup. Let’s go to the book of Colossians chapter 2:6-19, page 572 in the Bibles provided.

chapter two.

Paul is writing to a small church, the Gospel has gone out from Jerusalem. It’s now among gentiles. It’s in this city of Colossae there’s a small group of people like us, a church like this, that Paul is so happy to hear, that the Gospel has reached. So happy to hear of your faith, but I want you to know the power of the Gospel. I want to remind you and root you in this. And so he writes a letter to them. They are an outpost of the Kingdom of God. And so in chapter two verse six he says,

Colossians 2:6-12Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord. So walk in him rooted and built up in him and established in the faith just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world and not according to Christ. For in him in Christ, the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily and you have been filled in him who is the head of all rule and authority and him. Also, you are circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism in which you are also raised with him through faith and the powerful working of God who raised him from the dead.

Huge run on sentence cause it’s so exciting and so packed. So you have to wake up to reread it. Don’t worry. We will re-read it.But you make a note there are some really big ideas in this passage.

Okay,

Verse 13…

Colossians 2:13-19and you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh. God made alive together with him having forgiven us all our trespasses by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands that is set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in him. But wait, there’s more… Therefore, so in light of what you just heard and cannot possibly comprehend right away, guess what?… God’s called me to explain it to you. Therefore, since that was so amazing, let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a sabbath. These are a shadow of things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. Let no one disqualify you. Insisting on a set of ascetiscism and worship of angels going on in detail about visions puffed up without reason, by a sensuous mind and not holding fast to the head from whom the whole body nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments grows with a growth that is from God.

We will stop there. Praise be to God!

This is amazing stuff cause we live in a time where empty philosophy, is king.

Well let me say this first. If you don’t have a philosophy that’s like a bedrock, you have nothing interesting to say.

Because your philosophy grounds you. Philosophy is love of wisdom. So Sophia is the Greek word for wisdom. Phileo love… Phileo Sophia. Oh I sound like an Italian but it’s great. Phileo Sophia, philosophy, lover of wisdom and wisdom is when you apply knowledge, it’s different than just knowledge. You get knowledge. But wisdom is when you apply knowledge so you become wise in something. We live in a world now where one can generally speak without understanding or wisdom. You just say things on a contraption from far away to hopefully win people over or do something. Make yourself feel good or make them feel good or make others feel bad. It’s, that’s kind of the power. But the reason I can’t engage social media is because when I have a meaningful conversation, I need certain things identified, like what is our shared definition of what is good and what is bad? But that would be wisdom and philosophy. What’s philosophy? Because if I know your philosophy, I can hear the things you’re saying and not be devastated, angry or overjoyed. I can go… Oh, that’s your point of view. Because it’s based in your application of knowledge… Philosophy and that mostly is anchored in what you’ve experienced in life. Right? So we have these thoughts.

So here’s the example, this is important because Paul is saying please be rooted and established in our philosophy. We have a philosophy as Christians and the world’s going to compete for your mind and heart, but it’s all based on emptiness. It’s nothing. The thing they’re basing on doesn’t have life to give. All it has to give is another master to hit you harder on your back and drive you to produce more and more. That’s the only philosophy that’s available apart from Christ. So that’s why we’re going to spend some time here describing what he’s saying because, I’ve seen it in the scripture. It’s, helped me greatly and I want the scriptures to help you. And Paul wants our philosophy, Christ, to help us. So here we go, lets break it down a bit. I knew as a child, make your bed. That’s the knowledge. But I couldn’t do it. I didn’t want to make my bed. Why should I? I thought it through and came to the conclusion that I’m just going to sleep in it again. So who Cares? Why do that? But then I got older and something changed in my experience between what I knew. Because my life as an adult experiences so much disorder and powerlessness, things that I can’t control, my mind changed, my experiences has cause me to say, you know, it’d be nice to walk into a bedroom that I order and I have some power over where my life feels nice. So that life experience caused me to now have an action, which is make my bed. Do you understand? Like there’s a middle thing between thinking right and doing right. A lot of us were raised that if you think right, you’ll do right, which is a lie. We all can think right, we have the right theology, but we’re still mean jerks and we hate ourselves and we hate everyone around us.

Why!!! Or we do right and we don’t think, right. Well, I just think the Bible’s wrong and I found it to work like this. You don’t think right? But I do right? And it’s this constant tension. (these last statements were said in a characters voice) Sorry for that voice. I don’t know who that was. So Paul says, I want you to be rooted in our philosophy and here’s where the in between thinking right and doing right is for us. The Holy Spirit works confidence. Because see, when you’re confident in your life experience, you have something. What you believe in, what you do, you won’t waiver from it. You have the confidence of this is how we do it. Why? Because you had some experience, right? You saw it work. The Holy Spirit says, I work in the in between place and for us it is in baptism and I will give you the confidence to die for this knowledge to die for living this way. Otherwise you’ll have no confidence and you’ll beat yourself up and you’ll beat up the people around you because you don’t understand how God works. And Paul says, it’s not a mystery. Over and over again in this passage, he states, there’s no more mystery. God is not hiding from you, say …”figure it out”. He says, I made it clear to you, be rooted and strengthened in this philosophy so that no one can disqualify you and you’ll never be led astray.

So verse nine. For in him, the fullness of Deity dwells bodily. So as our philosophy, as Christians, you believe, and you bow to the idea that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh.

Think about that, that’s a big thing to believe. Earlier in chapter one verse 15 listen to this. Paul already says this, so he’s, he’s coming back to an idea. He says, Jesus is the image of the invisible god, the firstborn of all creation. And by that he means the older brother who gets the inheritance, not that he is a creation for by him, Jesus, all things were created in heaven and on earth.

Through him and for him, visible and invisible thrones, dominions or rulers, he is before all things and in him he holds all things together. He is the head of the body of the church, the beginning, the firstborn from the dead and in everything he might be preeminent for in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell and through him to reconcile himself to all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. Here’s the impossible mystery that everybody’s been looking for and always looks for. Where is God and where can we find him and what or what special things do I need to do to myself to set me apart from everybody else and all this stuff to find God. And the audacity of our Gospel is to say, Jesus Christ came. He made himself known. In fact, we’re trying to give it away. We’re giving away free tickets to hear about him today. You can’t. I mean you can, you give them away. But the mystery is that God came to Earth and died for you in the flesh. So Jesus was at creation. Jesus is the ruler. He is our king. And so we say Jesus, one day, every knee shall bow and tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. We’re just starting early. We’re preparing for that. So this is the first part of your philosophy. This is the knowledge we believe it, but how is that going to translate God coming in the flesh? There’s no more mystery. What’s the mechanism to giving us the confidence we need? And that’s where Paul says, I want you to anchor this amazing mystery in another, in the mystery of Christ, which is he can bring life to you. And he uses circumcision to baptism. Did you, did you catch this? The mechanics are the point of contact for God to us.

The God of universe to us is at baptism. I feel like this isn’t something I grew up with. Let me just talk to you all. I didn’t grow up with thinking baptism meant a whole lot other than you said I love Jesus now, which that meant a lot, but it’s way better than that. I’ve been on this journey. I feel like a little bit of trailblazer for you guys. I’m like cutting through the woods and you’re behind me. I’m like, trust me, this is amazing. Trust me, I hear the music, I the smell, the barbecue this way. Come on and you’re like, alright, I trust Adam and I trust Paul and Paul trusts in Christ and I trust Christ and there’s something more to baptism than just what we think. It’s really powerful.

I’ll use his words and then I’ll use my words because Paul’s are way better. But he says in chapter two, verse 10, the fullness of body dwells, deity dwells bodily and you have been filled in him who is the head of all rule and authority in him. Also, you are circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ. Okay? Circumcision, just as a refresher, this is how God marked you off as a person in Israel,

The promise was we circumcise you and now you are marked as a recipient of the promises and the provision for the people of God. It’s flesh. Paul and Jesus. Now say like the Lord’s supper. It was Passover. Now it’s the Lord’s supper. Circumcision. Now it’s baptism. And here’s where we get that,

Because he says, the circumcision bit, comma, having been buried with him in baptism in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God who raised him from the dead and you who are dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, forgiving all your trespasses. So our new way of thinking is at baptism, Jesus remakes you. This is what gets knowledge and action. This is where it all depends, in baptism. Here’s why, because at Baptism, God speaks over you. Many of us have had a moment of conversion. We confessed our faith and then we got baptized out of obedience and to make it known, and that’s good, but it’s bigger than that. More than that, God spoke over you like he spoke at creation when he said, let there be light,

Jesus. If Jesus is God in the flesh,

And God in the flesh says to his apostles, teach people, make disciples. And there’s one thing I ask you to do, baptize them into the name of the father, son and Holy Spirit. Why would the God of the universe and the flesh say that? Why would he say that? If it’s like just a side thing, it’s crazy. But here’s what I’ve learned and I’m sharing with you at your baptism, whether you were a baby that knew nothing or whether you’re a 14 year old who was only there because of cute girls and knew nothing. Right? God is amazing. God put this on you. He spoke life into you through a fallen guy like myself who simply did what Jesus said, which he says, I want you to speak into them,

Baptize them into the name of the father, son and Holy Spirit. Here’s why, because I will mark out. That’s when God marks you and the reason Jesus set this up is because he knows we can’t trust our own selfs. If my experience is in the middle of knowledge and action, it’s sometimes good, sometimes really bad. If my experience of Christianity is based on a decision I made when I was 14

Whew. That’s going to be tough.

Maybe it will be when I was 24 or 34 I’m 45 now. I’d say it’s really on 45 now. Jesus says, look, you’re going to be all over the place emotionally and intellectually, but I want you to know I spoke creation in you at your baptism. That’s when you were washed and brought to life with Christ. That’s the language of circumcision to baptism. You died with Christ and you were raised again with him. You were cleansed of all your old sin, the new man was brought to life. The new creation. Let there be light. You are in Jesus Christ. You’re the new person. And so all of our wisdom and all of our philosophies anchored on the work of Christ.

The work of Christ. Here’s the beautiful thing. Ever since the fall, heaven and earth have been separated, we’ve lost Eden.

And at your baptism, this is the point of contact between heaven and earth. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Jesus taught us to pray. I want to connect those things because the order is God and humans walking with God, having dominion over the earth. We lost it. We gave away the dominion to Satan, but what does baptism do? It’s where heaven and earth meet. And so the new Eden starts in you and me by a proclamation, the active word of God saying, you start over, you are baptized into Father Son and Holy Spirit. But you could say… I didn’t do anything at baptism. I was little or I didn’t even know what was going on. All right, perfect. That’s the work of God. And the more the work of God it is, the more powerful and more lasting it will be. And so at your baptism, God recreated you, and the relationship between heaven and earth has been re-instituted. You’ve been cleansed and now you are being raised up. And here’s the beautiful thing. Let no one disqualify you. So when Satan accuses you of being a hypocrite, claiming “you say you believe in God, but then you act a differernt way”. Or when you accuse yourself, because of your moral inconsistency. The new response is… Remember your baptism and you say, what does that accusation have to do with me? That accusation sticks to the old me, but the old me was buried and drowned with Christ and his death and resurrection. The new me is totally different than the old me. Christ sees me as a saint whom He has secured. Christ forgives me. So whatever accusation is lobbed at me now, I respond no, that’s the old me. The accusation is true, but now I’m under the announcement of Christ, not the accusation of the devil. The Devil by the way, wants you to test God, and blame Him for all your sin, by saying “God, you made me sin. You gave me the woman God. And that’s where all my problems have come from.” So all the accusations we pick up we turn and accuse God of being truly responsible for. But in our baptism, we receive a whole new situation. We remember that the prosecution of the law doesn’t stick to me anymore. And if it is sticking to me, God forgive me. So baptism is the offical shorthand for all the work of God in the flesh, dying and rising again. Baptism is shorthand for the point of experiencial contact with God turning our knowledge into a treasued and precious life giving wisdom. So you remember your baptism,

And that’s where knowledge and action will be born. As you receive and remember that you’ve been remade, this whole thing has started again in you by the work of Christ. And the Holy Spirit will work there. I have started growing into this, I’ll just tell you for the last year I’ve been using this language personally, trying to remember my baptism. In 1988 a little bald guy named Mark baptized me and it didn’t feel that powerful. And I’m telling you though, over the last year I’ve been using this baptismal language and it has been powerfully anchoring me in the Gospel.

I don’t know how you pray, but if you’re like me, a lot of your prayers are like, Oh God, I’m sorry again. I don’t know if I’m right with you because I have no confidence before God and before the world, right? We’re all just winging it, doing the best we can. Only the successful people will look back and go, yeah, you should do better. Yeah, but you are successful what about the rest of us? And so I started, I’ve started looking at my baptism and going, really God, you remade me there? Yeah. And I’m resting in that.

And that’s the experience you root in. We naturally like to make Christianity into like a platform game. You got to level up and the more levels you get to, the more lives you get and the closer you get to winning the whole game and that’s a philosophy from the devil. See that’s a lie from our own human brokenness because Paul is saying you’re going to get slammed with different philosophies. So the wisdom that the Colossians we’re running into was a renewed intrest in the Jewish law. “Well, that is true. I mean the law is anchored in the words of God. We better go back to that”. But Paul already slammed the Galatians for that thinking and in Colassians since they’re not so Jewish but more gentile they were thinking…. “We’ve got to get into angels and demons and miracles and things that set me apart and make me more spiritual. Lets reach a new level of spirituality!” All humans are tempted in one way or the other at all times to a version of this.

You know why? Because we have control over that. We like control over our lives, so we naturally become all about the law. “It’s my works and I know a lot of theology, and you don’t, and we can do asceticism”. Asceticism is when you beat yourself. (Made the motion of whipping his own back)This means whip your back. I don’t know if I’ve ever explained that to you. I have made that motion a lot lately. But you’re beating yourself up until you’re holy. And so then you say Oh God, I need to do more. I need to do more. I need… (more whipping sounds) Okay! That never saved anybody! Many of you are not inclinced to ascetisim, but you are the exciting ones, you might say …”well that’s dumb”. So the otherside are the experience chasers. The ones who say, “I want to see miracles, man. I want to see the power of God. I want to see this. I’m going to see that. How do you get it? How do you get what you got? You gotta come here. You gotta you do a little more and you gotta do this, you gotta learn the secret prayer. You gotta beat yourself up over here. You got to let yourself free and do this and do this and do….” It’s all these lists. And so you end up hearing some things but never doing anything cause it’s all based on you. The point of contact is your baptism. And because of that, you are empowered with confidence because you didn’t do anything. You received it. And here’s what you got at your baptism.

It marked out you as a person who is forgiven all your trespasses, you messed up again this week, you are forgiven. You’ve been baptized, you’re in Jesus Christ. You are forgiven. You owe debt. You’re in debt. Any debt you’ve occurred from God is forgiven you. The legal demand against you is forgiven. Canceling the record of debt and its legal demands, nailing it to the cross. You’re justified. You’re recreated. And he’s disarmed the rulers and authorities to put them to open shame. I am triumphing over them. Did you know what Rome woud do when they they took over a little place, they would bring back the army to Rome, have a huge parade, like a Superbowl parade, but it was like the opposite. Everyone’s cheering because what they would do is strip down the other countries army, no armor, no clothes, totally naked. And so then if we won, you would see our military and all their might with all their horses and all their stuff. And then you’d see that the people we just defeated naked and defeated. We would then rejoice. (Understandably this feels weird to us because we no longer mock our enemies like that, and this idea causes some confusion to our modern understanding of handling prisoners, but the idea still stands. Jesus has conquered the destroyers of the earth.)

Okay,

Now we’re talking, because we have a philosophy. So when you have a philosophy and you understand that we are the conquerors, that Christ has disarmed all authorities. When you do sin and when you do mess it up, you can have confidence because we’re the people who repent and say, God, forgive me, thank you thank you. Forgive me, I have. Now pick your head up. Let’s move forward into life. You’re not going to be ashamed for the Gospel. So you and I, we believe in Jesus. We bowed to him. We’re not going to be paraded naked and humiliated.

However we are in this life, that’s why it’s hard, because in this life we are the fools. But Christ, he’s already humiliating all the enemies, but he’s gracious and he’s inviting everyone to come to Him, so that doesn’t have to happen. But we’re the ones who are, we are the ones who are empowered, confident because it’s based on the work of Christ.

He’s remade us at baptism and so the result is confidence in Christ. We’re alive. We’re alive with him. So okay, the Holy Spirit works. When you remember that it’s all a gift and you are baptized. That’s what the Holy Spirit’s got. And here’s what the Holy Spirit’s going to do. Anchor you. So when you’re suffering now, He will anchor you. I got you. When you’re doing great, he’ll anchor you. You can’t control all this. Your arrogance, you’re just scared. You’re going to lose it. In your despair. You’re scared, you’re never going to get it. But in your baptism, He rests, you have it. It’s going to be forever. It’s the promise of God.

One philosophy that we have that devastates us and our culture is the phrase that’s been going on for a long time. The phrase, “believe in yourself, believe in yourself. Yes, believe in yourself.” And in some ways it makes sense, like just step out and have some confidence. Do the things you can do. Right, but ultimately believing in yourself crushes you. You know who says believe in yourself…people like Lenny Kravitz, he lives out on a hundred acre mansion in Chili or something or somewhere like that because he’s rich and it worked out for him. I believed in myself and it didn’t work so well. That’s my experience. So believe in yourself it might work out! Believe in yourself and for a small group of people it will work out, but for the rest of us…We will be asking, what did I do wrong? We will be looking to blame someone and we’ll just be mad at the rich because we all believed in ourselves and were not happy. By the way, being rich doesn’t mean your happy… Anyway. Don’t believe in yourself. That’s not the thing that works. How could it? It’s limited. You’re limited. You only see so much. We believe in Christ and his baptism, our baptism into him and so believe in Christ and here’s what you get. Here’s our philosophy.

be yourself. That’s our philosophy,

Believe in Christ, rest in the baptism and now be yourself. You get to be yourself. You get to pick your head up and go, I really like theology. I’m going to be all theology. And then my friend Scott Ballou is like, I want to help the homeless in Winter Garden, I’m going to be all practical help. And instead of going, you’re too far that way. You’re too far that way, , we’re baptized and free to explore our personalities and be who we get to be because we’re now reordered, aligned under the God of the universe. Totally set free based on the work of Christ. Makes a lot more sense. That’s our philosophy. So you get to be yourself and it takes faith cause it’s scary. We live in a world that’s trying to humiliate you and destroy you. It takes faith in God to even believe that. But this is the short hand cleansing water of Christ. You have been raised up. So I want you all and I want the Holy Spirit not to work super special, crazy things for us. You know what I want him to work for all of us today. Ridiculous confidence in Christ. We don’t have to have the answers. We’re free. We’re free to fail. Our savior “failed”, failure can’t even hurt us. I want ridiculous confidence built on the philosophy of Christ at the center. He connects, right thinking with acting. And now we’re free to explore because the world has been made right beginning in us.

Oh, praise you. Praise God. Because if I had to tell you everything and I had to know everything, we’d all be doomed. Praise God. Let’s pray, dear Heavenly Father, thank you for your word. Thank you that this is based on the work, the word of Christ who was made flesh and dwelt among us. You came for us. I’m just going to use the first person. God loves you. God’s remade you. God has empowered you. Thanks be to God. Root us in this. Knit us together like grafted skin to Jesus Christ. Holy Spirit. Continue to finish this work in Jesus name. Amen.

So let’s all confess. We’re the people who can confess that Jesus is my king. And the way we do that is with all the saints who’ve gone before us in confessing the Apostles creed. Jesus gave this to the apostles. The apostles have passed it down. And so we are the protectors of the story. And here’s the main idea of the story that we all believe. So please rise and let’s say the apostle’s creed together so that we encourage one another and we are able to speak out loud what it is we believe. What is it you believe Christian?,.

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of Heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ his only son, our Lord who is 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 to sit 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, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. Amen.

You may be seated, give thanks to God. The confidence we even have to give money and we can give online too. Joe Reminded me, we have the kind of confidence where money is no longer our savior. We want the word of God to be funded on earth as it is in Heaven, because that’s where life is and so many of you give online or if you’re able to support the word of God here at New City Church, consider that and cheerfully give cause it is truly God who takes care of you.

At the same time we offer up prayer requests as the plate goes around. Lord, Lord, I pray that you would minister to our hearts and our minds. All the a job stress, the future stress, relationship stress, baby stress, existing babies Life stress. We give to you. We give you what little we have because we trust you with it. But we recognize you are the God of life. You are the God that reconciles and reorders. And so we give ourselves to you and make our requests known to you. We seek and we knock and we ask that you would give us back in exchange for our requests. We need you to act in healing, healing our diseases, forgiving our sins, reordering our lives, and we ask in exchange for your Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit work the confidence that we have been heard. We’ve been seen by God and you are attending to all of our needs. Thank you. We give ourselves and we give our minds and hearts to you. In Jesus name. Amen.

Let’s pray the Lord’s prayer as we go into the Lord’s supper, let’s pray the Lord’s prayer, “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 and 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 same way Jesus taught us to pray, he said baptize. He also said, I will work faith in you through the Lord’s supper. And many of us have come to enjoy it. Now it’s the place of confidence. Where you’ve lost confidence during the week or you have struggled. This is the place where you come to restore that energy and that confidence that Christ is for you. And so the night that he was to be betrayed, and it looks like a big failure, he’s having problems at work. It’s bad. But Jesus dies for us. And he says, I’m changing the Passover meal. It’s not a lamb. I am the lamb and I am your lamb and I die for you. And so he takes the bread and he says, this is my body. which is broken for you. Though you die you will never die under Christ. He died. And in the same way, he took the cup and he says, this is my blood. A new covenant, for the forgiveness of sins, take and drink of it, eat of it. Let Christ be in you and come to the Lord’s table. It’s a meal where we rehearse the truth so that it becomes a part of you and you of Christ. You are loved child at the table of God who will take care of you and receive his confidence that it is finished for you. Father, we know that this is bread and wine on the outer ring and grape juice in the middle, but by your word, you do what you do with your word. You make things living. You make a burning bush, a place that’s living because you speak through it. You apply the words of Jesus Christ and by faith we approach it and we receive much more than the nourishment of a little bread and a little bit of wine. We received the body and blood of Christ by faith strengthening us where the holy spirit builds confidence to live and to love and to be ourselves. Praise be to God for this inexpressible gift. We set it apart and asked that you’d use it to nurture, nourish our faith in Jesus name. Amen. Jesus says that as often as you eat of this bread and drink of this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death and His coming again. Amen. Receive God’s blessing. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord look upon you and give you peace now and forever. Amen.