The Holy Spirit Works – The New Self

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A sermon by Adam Barcott

August 04 2019

Glad you’re here, let me pray and then we’ll set our hearts right with the confession of faith. Confession of our sin and the absolution by Christ. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you that you are our strength. You are our wisdom. You do all the heavy lifting. So we gather with all the heavenly hosts your people and the created things that are here in this area, in this room right now. We gather together and praise you and we give thanks to you and we gather to you for life. So we ask that you’d be blessed and that you would bless us in our worship. As Grow our faith and nourish our spirits and our souls, we ask this in Jesus name. Amen. We just set our hearts right by acknowledging we’re not perfect and you don’t have to be perfect, not if you’re a Christian. Perfection is on Jesus. And what we get is forgiveness through his death and resurrection. So if you can acknowledge that you’ve sinned, then you’re able and been made ready to receive his forgiveness. So let’s pray together that prayer of confession by saying, Father we have sinned against thee in thought word and deed by what we have done and left undone.

And as a pastor, I announced to you that God has said, I’ve given you my Son to die for you and it’s for his sake. Your sins are forgiven. Take a deep breath and say amen. Amen. You’re forgiven, while we’re standing. I want to read a psalm. Make a joyful noise to the Lord. All the earth. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come into his presence with singing. Know that the Lord he is God. It is he who made us and we are his. We are as people and the sheep of his pasture enter his gates with Thanksgiving and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him. Bless his name for the Lord is good. His steadfast love endures forever and his faithfulness to all generations. Amen. Have a seat.

All right, let’s look at today’s Gospel reading is Luke Chapter 12:13 through 21, if you’re following along, it’ll be on page 508. So Luke Chapter 12 verse 13 through 21, it’s a parable told by Jesus and this is one of those parables, that will challenge you simply because you’re born in America. Because it challenges our whole ethic, how we live and do things so prepare to be challenged from the words of your savior.

Luke 12:13-21

Someone in the crowd said to him, “Jesus teacher, tell my brother to divide my inheritance with me. But he said to him, man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you? And he said to them take care and be on your guard against all covetousness. For one’s life does not consist in abundance of his possessions. That’s not where life is found. And then he told them a parable saying the land of a rich man produced a plentifuly. And he thought to himself, what should I do for I have nowhere to store my crops, I have so much. And he said, I will do this. I will tear down my barns and build larger ones. And there I will store all my grain and my goods.

And I will say to my soul, soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years. Relax, drink and be merry. But God said to him, fool, this night, your soul is required of you and the things you have prepared, whose will they be? So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.

This is the reading of God’s word, praise be to God.

So what an interesting passage because the way I think is to eat, drink, be merry relax you worked hard, you stored up extra and you did the right thing, right? So, why is Jesus getting mad or why in this parable is God saying you’re a fool?

Because Jesus says it early on to the guy who says, hey, you’re the son of God. Would you make my brother pay me back please. I’m not your arbiter. I’m not here to settle these disputes so that you can feel good about yourself and get what you think you have. You don’t understand me. If you think that’s what I’m doing here. I’m restoring the order of heaven and earth back to what? What God created it to be. That’s what I’m doing here. And so when he says, one’s life does not consist in an abundance of his possessions, that’s what this parable is saying. It’s okay to save up. It’s okay to be wise, but your life, the stuff that you can’t possess, like love, joy, peace, kindness, happiness, self control. See, those are things you can’t just keep in a box.

I wish I could, if I could get joy and just have it, a piece of joy and I just put it in my drawer in my office and whenever I need joy, I open it and I go, oh, it just fills me with joy. There is nothing like that is there? Or we’d all have one in our pocket right now. Like you can’t possess joy. You can’t possess love. You get the experience given to you, you get it. And then you remember where you got it last time and you try to go back and get it again. But then it diminishes. That person’s not as cool as the first time you talked to them. They didn’t make me laugh as much. They’re kind of a normal person. Oh they have some debt, they have some problems. Oh no my joy in them is diminishing. I want the joy of when we first met. Those things are given to us. They aren’t possessions. And so the ethic under Christ is don’t try to store up all these things and expect for them to give you what they cannot. They cannot give you the life you were created for. They’re nice. They make you, you can be generous with them. They can provide and take away some worry. But life is not found in your possessions. So don’t fool yourself. Once you have all your barns filled up and planning on relaxing, having a drink, and being happy, that’s not how it’s gonna work, because that’s not how it was created to work. God will give you the peace and the security and the identity, not your stuff. That’s what Jesus is saying. But this strikes us at our core, because we look for life in things, don’t we just naturally, it’s okay. You can admit it.

We do. I do.

And that’s why we need the word of God. And we need to meet Christ all the time and hear him. So this is just an intro to our real passage. See if you can find the connections between the story of the parable of the rich fool to our reading.

Colossians chapter 3:1-11 and that’s on page 572, again Colossians 3:1-11.

Colossians 3:1-11If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above not on things that are on earth for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Amen. Put to death therefore what is earthly in you sexual immorality. (It’s always sexual immorality, isn’t it?) Impurity, passion, evil desire and covetousness, which is idolatry on account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked when you were living in them. But now you must put them away all the way anger, wrath, malice, slander and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another. Seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in the knowledge after the image of its creator. Here, there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Sinthian, slave free. But Christ is all and in all.

The reading of God’s word. Praise be to God. Praise God for his word sets us right.

This passage is kind of amazing. In fact, I don’t know Anthony, if you remember when you were in ninth grade, I taught at a Christian school, Anthony or Barry, maybe you remember my classroom. I had this passage written up and posted on the wall, because it was a Christian school, so you’ve got to put verses up and stuff. But I had this verse, if you’ve been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above.

But back then when I, when I wrote it, and put it up, I still had a limited understanding of the scriptures and uh, kind of a earthly works spiritual understanding in me. So I wanted this verse to basically say to Anthony and to Barry and whoever else was in my class back, “Hey, do better stop seeking the wrong things. Stop looking at the girls and do your work.” That’s what I wanted this passage to say. So I had it up there and that’s why it didn’t work. Didn’t work. I can prove it all to you later.

Here’s what the Lord is saying to us. And this is what Paul is saying to us in light of the Holy Spirit. So all of this is how the Holy Spirit works. The Holy Spirit is not this mystical thing who works one way for you, another way for you and it’s all confusing. The Holy Spirit does not do that. He brings comfort, not confusion. And the Holy Spirit always brings to you Christ, brings to you the word. The Holy Spirit is always applying to you this place of contact between heaven and earth. The Holy Spirit is in charge of that. And it’s not a mystery. He’s not trying to hide it from you, He’s making it very plain. And Paul building on some things is saying, here’s what you need to know today.

The Holy Spirit is working your new self, that there’s a new you and he’s working it. He’s created it he wants you to start to explore it. Seek things that are above, put off and put on because there’s a new you. So in the spiritual world there are realities that are 100% true and the truth is 100%, Christ is sitting at the right hand of God, the father, he’s been victorious over death and you have been made new. So how do you grow into, how do you put on, how do you live in this new self? Because how many of you feel new today?

Do you feel like you just got a make over and you got a new look. Getting ready for your new school clothes, things are going to be different. Because I have the right shoes this year, I’m gonna make a lot of friends. You know, you ever feel like that? Maybe not just me today. Yeah. Shoes aren’t going to help. Confidence has to come from within. So Here’s what I want to implant in you so that you’ll be rooted and established in the grace of Jesus Christ. And that is the new self. Your new self has power, has the power to kill and to make alive. Your new self has the power to kill and make alive. Your old self only had the power to kill, but now you have the power to make alive. Let’s explore that for a second.

So first of all it says if then you have been raised with Christ, if you have died and your life is hidden with Christ, Paul writes like this in Romans, he writes like this in Colossians and after last week he deeply rooted the idea of being marked and set apart for the nation of Israel through circumcision. He deeply roots then, it says, I want your philosophy to be in baptism.

So the idea is the philosophies of the world always go like this. There’s knowledge, ok, I learned something. And then there’s wisdom Ok, I put that knowledge into practice. But just believing if you know right that you’ll just do right doesn’t work. Nor does just doing right lead you to knowing what’s truly right. And it doesn’t work that way. There’s always something in between.

So the example last week was to make your Bed, I know I should make my bed, but I don’t do it. There’s always something in the middle and experience. So the experience would be, I was feeling like the world was out of control. I made my bed and that made me feel like my world is in control. Oh, I liked that feeling. Now I start to make my bed. Orthodoxy, right thinking there’s an experience, and then there’s practice. Paul says that’s how the world works. And I want you to know why baptism is so important because that experience you have in between knowledge and practice has to be rooted in God. It has to be the action of God given to you, speaking into you, creating that experience. Because if it’s left up to you it could be a good experience or a bad experience. It’s fleeting, and you’ll never get to doing right. You’ll get stuck on what you believe and you’ll never make that connection because it’s up to you. So that’s why Paul says be rooted in baptism because baptism is shorthand for death. It’s shorthand for resurrection. So you’ve been, drowned. The old man has been drowned and killed with Christ, and then you’ve been brought back to life. So if then you have died with Christ, says this in Romans six, you died with Christ. When you hear that, it’s not like I’m trying to kill myself, like in a spiritual way, like trying to get all my bad things under control. I’m going to die with Christ and think it was like that. It’s not. It’s you were baptized and in your baptism, the old man died. God spoke, you had faith or it was conferred on you, and God said, I’m marking you out for forgiveness of sins. I’m justifying you. I’m giving you an inheritance, a new identity, a new freedom. The mystery is gone. You know God in the flesh is now in you.

And by the way, this is what the fullness of Deity dwelled in Jesus. So we believe Jesus is God on earth. Jesus says, what to his apostles, disciples, guys, I need you to do two things. Teach and baptize. Please baptize them in the name of father, son, Holy Spirit. Why would God of the universe say baptize if it was just like a cool extra thing to help your faith and your reason. He says it because he knows that’s the official marking out of my people. And this then, now our confidence is in the work of Christ over us. The short hand of baptism is, I’ve died with Christ because he died and rose again. That’s mine. This is where the new self is rooted.

And it has to come first. If you switch the order, you’re doomed. Because if I try to do a bunch of good things so that I feel like I’m saved it’s never going to work. That’s how this earthly world works. You plant a seed, you water it and you’re like, did I do right things for it to grow? That’s how things work on the earth. We try to apply that to the heavenly things and God has been saying that’s not how it works with the heavenly things. You get marked out and I save you by my work on the cross, not yours. And so your new self is rooted in the work of somebody else. Just like all these sweet babies. These babies in our congregation were made not because they tried real hard to jump into this world as cute as they can be. It was the work of someone else. Same with us. So our new self is raised up, it’s created and we are anchored in our baptism and that’s what Paul is saying when he says if then. If then, in light of and the previous passage, it’s all about baptism, right? Remember that I need you to know this because we’re going to get into our behavior and I have to pound the idea of justification. Because when you get into behavior, we will always be prone to guilt and shame because there was more that we could have done. So now God’s mad at me and that’s why Paul is saying no, no, no you’re forgetting your baptism.

We can start to talk about behavior because we have the knowledge of Jesus Christ. Repent! Peter at Pentecost said, you killed Jesus. They audience said we agree…so what do we do? And that conviction is a gift of the Holy Spirit. So you repent. You’re like, oh, I realize I’m not doing things right. Forgive me. Where do I anchor my forgiveness in the death and resurrection of Christ? At your baptism, you are baptized into father, son, and Holy Spirit. There’s a unity, not your works,His. Receive that. And then I’ll give you the holy spirit who will recreate you. This is where we’re at now, but you have to go in this order because the new self is going to have to do some things.

I remember I took a Greek and we’re all trying to figure out what’s the easiest way to get this vocab and these Greek words down. And the professor said.. “Brute memorization”. You’re just gonna have to memorize these things. And I was like, what? There’s gotta be a trick. It was brute memorization. It was, I used to go through my flashcards while driving on I 4 . It was before cell phones. So I was the original distracted text driver because it’s so scary that you remember things better with the adrenaline. Lord forgive me. Anyway, that’s the trick for rote memorization. And so there is a point in the Christian life where it’s like put away, stop doing that.

I’m going to explain how we navigate that because I think God’s gracious and kind and we don’t want to lead with judgment.. But if you then died with Christ and you have this new self, seek those things which are above. So let’s talk about that. How do you seek those things which are above?

So it’s a real question. But Christ is above right now. So there’s the spiritual realm, the earthly realm, and they’ve been separated yet they’re supposed to be together, right? In Eden sin separated those and put a boundary between God and us. The Holy Spirit had been working ever since to bring together heaven and earth on earth as it is in heaven, reunite the spiritual and physical together. And so what’s happened at our baptism is it’s the new Eden right here, the water washes me. And now the new Eden has begun because I am spiritual and I am still physical. Heaven and earth have come together in me and in you who confessed Christ, really cool. But now you seek things which are above, which means you seek Christ as king. And here’s why.

Because when you seek things that are below, and we all done that. It’s like when you grow up and you get tired of doing the same old stuff. So Paul is saying, when you’ve sought things here, basically you’re trying to secure for yourself, honor, glory, security, identity meaning and purpose. And you’re trying to secure those things and fill up your barns so you can relax and rest and eat, drink, and be merry. Well, when you meet Christ and you realize there’s more!

Paul saying, …aren’t you tired of seeking the same old things that you know when you get them, even if you become a famous rock star at whatever you’re doing, you have all this money, now you got to protect it. Now you’ve got to pay a guy to manage the investment because you’re not managing it well. There’s things you have to pay for. Now your ceiling fan instead of being $300 is $3,000 dollars so now the repairing is $300 instead of $30 it all just goes the same. I’ve seen it. (I know some rich people). It’s all the same.

You’ve been raised to a new self. This new self now has access to real love, to real joy, to real peace, and it’s always in Jesus Christ that he gives it to us. It’s always there. So he says, stop seeking for these temperary things. Now that you’ve been raised with Christ, you don’t have to seek for love, joy, peace here. None of the places here, it’s all created things and another creature can’t give me life. It’s another creature. There’s two categories of beings in the universe, there is creator and the rest of us are creatures. So if I looked at anything else to give me this, it’s idolatry. And that’s that list, impurity, passion, all that stuff. Idolatry and sexual immorality.

But here’s how, here’s what that produces when you seek things of the earth, there’s another list of anger, wrath, malice, lying to one another. And those are just manifestations of when you’re seeking things on the earth. Because when I’m seeking for a person or my job or something, created to give me life, guess what? I get angry cause it’s never enough, I become a angy. I accused, you stole from me, when you should’ve given to me. All that list it’s just manifested in our hearts and minds. And Paul says put away anger, wrath, malice, slander. And obscene talk from your mouth. You know, what obscene means? I looked it up because I was like, oh Lord. I think I say a lot of weird things. Of course, like just dirty talk. But it also means obscene talk is when you corrupt the gospel. It’s obscene to even tell other people a corrupted version of the Gospel. That there’s another way to get eternal life eternal love, eternal joy, peace, comfort, fear, love and trust. Anything that’s obscene, put that away and put on. And so the seeking those things above are recognizing I want something more.

The only way I can think of it right now is when we get a beach house with the whole family.

And you get this house on the beach for a week. You pay for it. It’s yours for the week. Paul is saying to us, this is, you’ve been raised, you have a new self. Why are you sleeping in your car at the beach? You have this house and you’re like, yeah, but it’s not my house. I Dunno. Come in and live, explore. You’re free. You get to be yourself. Seek what’s in here. Start to explore God’s goodness, God’s creativity, what you can, what feels right, what doesn’t. You’re like, oh, it didn’t feel right, you get to learn and grow, so seek those things which are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Now this brings us to our next question where do we seek for these things? Where do I seek… And it’s just like anything else in life.

Where do you seek when you want to go on a vacation? If you want to go on a vacation, how do you do that? You go online, right? You go online, you first go and get some knowledge. Let’s look at the word, the word written, knowledge about where you’re going to go. Then the next decision is, I would say experience, right? Like if you decide like most of the people on earth to come to Orlando, Disney. It’s based on some knowledge, but it’s also based on experience, right? They saw fox in the hound or something in the theater and never forgot it. Like you had some experience with a movie, you have some experience and you’re like, I think I’d like Disney. That’s the connection now to your behavior. So now you buy tickets and you set up a year in advance to stay somewhere and you do it, and then eventually guess what you do… You put on your, Mickey mouse ears and you walk through the park and you enjoy the day and you’re a little dissapointed because it’s hotter than you thought and the lines are longer, but you still love it. But you’re putting on Disney. It’s not a huge concept. We get it. We do it every day. Yet when it comes to Christianity, it’s like seek those things which are above…, I don’t know. It’s the same thing. You go to the word, you hear about it. I think I want that kind of peace. I think I want that kind of confidence and strength. You’re experience is baptism. Christ died for you. You died rose again. So all the accusations of you no longer stand? I died. The new person receives the announcement that I’m a child of God. So say whatever you want to me, Satan, self, other enemy. I’m a new creation.

Okay.

Now you actually start to enjoy. How, where, Word of God, sacraments and then church. Church. What other places are there on planet Earth where Jesus Christ is king. Think about it. This is where we crown him king. All the churches that love Jesus are crowning Jesus King. That’s where he is. Seek those things which are above, which means go to church. He’s trying to make it as simple as possible. If you’ve been raised and your new, go to church. Because that’s where Christ is and that’s what your life’s about and that’s where your life is hidden. But see how it works. You have to be anchored in salvation. You’re not going to church to be saved. That’s where everybody comes up with the excuse in our own excuse, which is, I don’t need to go there to be saved. Yeah, dummy, you’re already saved and I can say thats just dumb, dumb logic. I do it too. We’re broken, twisted humans. We’re trying to put ourselves on top and make the rules when now we’re under the order and reign and rule of a gracious all loving, all knowing God.

And so yeah, we do dumb things. That’s one of the dumb ones. I don’t need to go to church. Yeah, you don’t you can sleep in the car while we’re in the house. Fine. I really look up to you. You’re so free. Whatever. I have no patients for that. No patients because it’s a crime. It’s like denying a child something they should have. It’s like putting a child in the closet. And that’s what Paul said, don’t get wrapped up with things on the earth. You have a new self and it’s anchored in Christ and now we’re going to put it on and here’s the places where we put it on. But here’s the thing that it does the best. You put it on in a very simple places. Church, word of God, sacraments where God touches the earth in you, but you now have the power. Did you catch the language? You can kill those.

You’re not powerless. I can’t help it. I’m always sinning. I’m always struggling with this. I’m always struggling with that. It’s fine to struggle because you get to repent and say, God, forgive me, but the Holy Spirit is working in you and empowering this new self to say, I don’t want to sin like that anymore.

I don’t want to keep my mind on things above yet I want to think like that. Holy Spirit, will you apply my baptism remind me that I’m baptized. Remind me that I’m your child, what is this new self? You have power to explore you have the power to kill, kill it, put it off. You know how to kill things you’ve all had a yard. There are two ways to kill things passively and aggressively. Passively, passively is when you have the yard and you’re like, it’s just not giving me enough joy to spend the two hours. I don’t think my neighbors care anymore. I’m not going to do that and I’m going to, see what happens. Let’s see what happens. Oh, I can’t believe it got overwhelmed by bugs and weeds and it’s totally dead and awful. That’s one way to kill things. Or like a friendship you can kill. Like I don’t like being with that person anymore, so I’m just going to stop talking to them and it kills the relationship because it’s not giving you what you want. You also kill something aggressively. If something is hurting you, you aggressively stop it.

And so when it comes to these things, these sins, you passively kill them or you aggressively kill them. Stop feeding. And this is a work. Put a little effort into it. Act like you care a little bit. Not for you Salvation, your wonderful kids in the family and we love you so much, but now do your chores. Let’s take out the trash. Let’s do some stuff. Instead of being like, I can’t believe I’m a giant baby! You have to help my poopy diaper! We can’t live our whole Christian lives like that. Dude, grow up. And that’s what Paul’s saying. You get to grow up, you have a new self. And so you’re not saved by all of these works and all this putting to death and putting on, it’s all because we’re receiving good things from God and now we have good things. And when we do good works and all that, they’re just gone just like in the moment because they’re not intended to be eternal. They’re intended to be good. God created us to love each other and to love him. That’s the order. So yeah, we can get on each other when it comes to the end of the order and say, try a little bit, see what happens. Seek God’s word a little bit more than the philosophy of the world, which is always death.

The Worlds phiolosphy is always death. Like, Oh, where are the people on the bottom? And people on top are bad and this is running out and the world’s ending. You know, if anyone believed the world was ending, I cry out to God or at least say, hey, if you have any faith cry out now, because the world’s ending in 10 years. So I don’t believe anybody, they’re not scared enough to cry out to God, and it’s not that bad because every plane that’s going down little black box is always full of people screaming “Oh God, Oh God, Oh God. So I’ll know something’s bad enough when someone’s screaming, Oh God, Oh God, Oh God. But as long as they’re saying, we need to tax here, do this, I’m like, ah, it’s not bad enough. You have the power. I just want you all to know I love you, and again, for you to be comforted. The Holy Spirit is at work in you, and part of that work in you is freeing you now to be free. You have the power to say, I don’t want to do that anymore Lord, will you help me? He’s like, yeah, but it’s not the stress of going am I saved or not say, naw man, you’re baptized. You’re born again. The water’s broke at your baptism.

Your water broke at your baptism. You’re born again, you have a new self. But this is the work of the Holy Spirit. So you repent, receive forgiveness at your baptism and let the Holy Spirit recreate you. But you’re empowered to work with him in that recreation.

Because your life is not at stake, your salvation is not at stake. You see that list and you’re like, oh, I do that. I do that, admit it! Be forgiven. That’s where the work, the faith is created. The Holy Spirit’s at work in you. I love you guys and I, I want you to know the truth. You know, and God loves us His angels are with us today singing, and whenever you’re worried about, let’s just lay it at his feet. Know you’re saved, know, he loves you and know that the new self has already begun and there’s a day when we’ll be made right, Heaven and earth will be made right all together on the universe in the universe.

fun. Let me pray. Father, I love your word. I thank you for anchoring us in your work that you take away the stress of our reason, trying to figure everything out. You’ve made it so simple. We can look at you and yet that gets to the heart of it. It’s too simple. We want to know that we did something right, but thank you lord that you save us. You save us. You freed us to explore this new world. We believe in Jesus. We don’t have to believe in ourselves and we believe in Jesus and we get to be ourselves. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise him. All creatures here below. Praise him above the heavenly host. Praise father, son and Holy Ghost. Amen.

Let’s stand and confess. So the confession is a group of people saying, Hey, I believe this and I’m not alone in it. So the apostles creed said for over 2000 years. Now on the first page of our book, Page B, the question is, what do you believe, Christian, you respond. 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 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 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, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. Amen.

You may be seated. We believe in the Holy Spirit, that’s so good. Thanks Lord.

Now’s our chance to respond to God and his goodness through offering. You can give online. Many of you give online. We appreciate that or you can give here. But see it as an act of worship where the new self interacts with money differently, the new self doesn’t look to money as a source of salvation, but you’re able to be generous to the work of God on Earth as it is in heaven. So let me pray while we give.

Father, thank you for all that you’ve given to us. We thank you for the many good gifts you’ve given us. You’ve given us the ability to see and to think and to read and to walk. And we don’t want to take that for granted ever. And so we praise you for all these things that we daily receive. We thank you for the opportunity to work. We thank you for the opportunity where you provide for us and some of us Lord, we pray that you would attend to our needs. We ask that you would provide through our work, provide us peace, give us wisdom, provide money where we need it. Others of us, Lord, we ask for wisdom with the money we have that you would use it to build your kingdom and to bless and to be generous. And then Lord, we pray for our health. We pray for those who are hurting right now and who are suffering and struggling with illness or we just don’t know what’s up. We ask that in your mercy, you would hear our prayer and heal our bodies.

And Lord, some of us are caught in sin and we just keep doing the same thing. We’re stuck like in a circuit. Would you break us out of that sin and give us hope? Would you break us out of just surviving and lead us into learning and growing? Would you bless all that we put our hands to? Lord, we pray that you would bless new city church. We pray that you would bless Orlando. We pray, Lord, that you’d have mercy and bless our nation and the world. But we look to you and we praise you for every good and perfect gift. Thanks be to God. We ask this and pray this in Jesus name. Amen.

So the point of contact between heaven and earth, Jesus sets up and he says it’s in baptism and the Lord’s supper. So as you approach the Lord’s supper, the faith that it requires is believing that God can do what he says. That’s always the faith. Whether it’s Abraham believing that God says you’re going to have a baby. That’s impossible. He had faith. It was counted to him as righteousness. Moses is talking to a Bush that’s on fire. He believes that was God. It was God’s voice. He had faith and it was counted to him as righteousness. As you come to the Lord Supper, you have faith that Jesus says, this is my body. This is my blood, that you are United to him and your baptism, and at the Lord’s supper, it’s a meal to nourish and grow the faith that he began at your baptism. And so our faith is that Christ is present here without trying to figure it out. God loves his creation. So it’s bread, It’s wine on the outer ring, grape juice in the middle. It’s still those because God created them and he loves those, but he’s also here because his word says, I will meet you here. And we approach it by faith. So this is the place to be nourished, to be knit together, grounded and root in the work of Jesus Christ for you. He died for you. You don’t have to die anymore.

The night that Jesus was betrayed, he took the bread, he broke it. He said, this is my body which is being broken for you. In the same way he took the cup and he poured it out and he said, this is my blood for a new covenant for the forgiveness of sins, you are forgiven because of my work. Father, we, we put your word on these basic elements in the name of the father, son and Holy Spirit. We trust you. We believe you. We take you at your word. You meet us here. Bless us. Now encourage us, forgive us, heal us in every way at your table. In Jesus name. Amen. Father. Thanks for working on us. Thanks God. It’s up to you. We trust you. God bless us. God, we bless you. Thanks. We trust you with all glory and honor and power and wisdom and might, because you know what to do with it and you’re generous and loving and you deserve it. Praise God. We love you. In Jesus name. Amen.