Jesus and Sinners

Introduction

Morning, everyone. Good to see everyone this morning. I see a lot of friendly faces and a lot of new faces. And if you’re visiting with us this morning, why don’t you let you know that you’re honored to guests, and we’re excited that you’re here with us this morning. we invite you to come back this evening at five o’clock. We’ll have a special congregational singing, and we invite you to participate in that. We’re here to worship God this morning, and we’re here to praise him, praise the Father, praise the Son, praise the Holy Spirit. And we pray that we do that this morning. But as we enter into that, if you want to read along with me, I’d like to read part of Psalm 145.

Psalm 145.

Verse 1, I will extol you, my God, O King, and I will bless your name forever and ever. Every day I will bless you, and I will praise your name forever and ever. Great is the Lord and highly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable. One generation shall praise your works to another and shall declare your mighty acts. On the glorious splendor of your majesty, and on your wonderful works, I will meditate. Men shall speak of the power of your awesome acts, and I will tell of your greatness. They shall eagerly utter the memory of your abundant goodness, and will shout joyfully of your righteousness.

The Lord is good to all, and his mercies over all his works. And all your works shall give thanks to you, O Lord, and your godly ones shall bless you. They shall speak to the glory of the glory of your kingdom, and talk of your power, to make known to the sons of men your mighty acts and the glory of the majesty of your kingdom. Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and your dominion endures throughout all generations. Let’s worship God this morning together.

I want to go to single season making some voice when we so rich and race all I want to sing and see the most to be my precious fly and I make us a man where I want to hear the foresting. I want to sweep this. I want to hear why sweetly sing to hear sweet soil that I’m raised in the end song. I know someday when I want to go to the angels be single meeting from my hands where I want to speak with voice women also rich and so I want to see a master precious thing and I was to be forest with me. I want to give my forest with me since I want to give my foresting to hear.

Please be seated. It is well with my soul. As much as we want to get there to heaven, spend time with him, our family praising God. We have a lot of struggles here on earth. It is well with my soul.

Scripture reading this morning is first Peter three fourteen through eighteen. So if you’ll be turning your Bibles there, First Peter three fourteen through eighteen. But even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness, you are blessed. And do not fear their intimidation, and so not be troubled. But sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense for to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you. Yet with gentleness and reverence, and keep a good conscience so that in the thing in which you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ will be put to shame. For it is better if God should will it so that you suffer for doing what is right rather than for doing what is wrong.

For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that he might bring us to God, having been put in, put to death in the flesh and made alive in the spirit. Y’all with me.

Lord, we are blessed to live in a country that allows us to worship you openly and freely without fear of persecution. We are blessed that you would give us grace. We are blessed that you are our redeemer, and that you sent your son for us. We thank you, Lord, for all that you provide us in this life. We thank you for this church and the people here that are devoted to you, devoted to your word, learning it and sharing it. We thank you for the strength and courage that word gives us.

And we have that hope of eternal life. We pray, Lord, you would be with us today during this worship that we would free our minds of the troubles of this world, that we can focus, and that our worship is pleasing to you in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Good morning. We’ve set this time aside in order for the members here to give back some of which we were so richly blessed in order to help support the work here at Decker Prairie as well as well as abroad and be used for benevolence and many of the needs of our congregation. This is not a solicitation of funds from our visitors. In fact, those of you that are visiting, if you can get a hold of a visitor’s card and felt some information about you so we can get to know you a little better, you can place in the tray or in the box or give it to one of the men here.

Shortly some men will be passing trays around. We have our PayPal link up here as well as a box in the foyer. If you all can please pray with me.

We are so very thankful of all that you’ve virtually blessed us, Lord. We are so richly blessed that even the poorest among us are considered rich in some areas of this world. Lord, we ask that you help us to remember that even if we lose every worldly possession, that if we have your grace and the chance to spend an eternity with you in heaven, provided by your son’s death on the cross, that we have it all.

Ask that these funds go to supporting the work here and to this family, as well as the work that’s being done abroad, and that it meets all the needs that you always meet for us, Lord. Isn’t your son Jesus’ holy name I pray? Amen.

I know that my Redeemer lives will be the invitation song. Before that, we will be singing in Christ alone. If you would, please be standing with me.

Solid crown and the piercestorn as a peace when tears are still wins I seas I love in my sooth of one place fullness of God in hellness of love and righteousness sworn by the one seek to say one side of his eye for every single I was lay here in the death of real is I lay I know the world might miss for from the great hero and as he sat in the Jesus commands my death and reserves for us me home here in the hour of please be seated. Making your way to Luke chapter five, Luke five. We’re gonna be in reading there in just a few moments. I’m excited for next week. Jonathan and Leah will be making their arrival. I’m due to some scheduling differences.

We switched some things up, and so it’ll be quite some time before you hear from me again. You may be okay with that, and that’s fine. I’ll be out of town, not next week, but the next two Sundays will be in Tennessee. I’ll be preaching three different places actually up there over the course of that 10-day period. One of those will be out with the Olympics out in East Tennessee. So we’re looking forward to being with them a little bit and being with three different congregations while we are making this trip up north. It seems weird to say up north to Tennessee, since I grew up in Vermont and everything was south of me. But now I’m in Texas and everything is north of me. So I want to spend some time this morning in Luke.

Actually, all three of the synoptics, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, we’re going to touch on every parallel text here has something to offer with part of what I want to do with this story. And so I’m going to read the Luke account, and then I’ll probably just reference some of the others. Maybe we’ll turn and look at those if we’re able to. But just follow the story with me as we look at Luke chapter 5, beginning in verse 27. It says, After this, he went out and saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the tax booth. And he said to him, Follow me. And leaving everything, he arose and followed him. And Levi made him a great feast in his house. And there was a large company of tax collectors and others reclining at table with them.

And the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples, saying, Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners? And Jesus answered them, those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. The whole story of Jesus centers around his mission to seek and save the lost. And in Luke 5 and Matthew 9 and Mark 2, Jesus isn’t just teaching crowds or debating religious leaders. He’s calling broken people, social outcasts, to follow him, to be his people. He walks up to Levi to Matthew, as he’s called in Matthew, who’s at a tax booth, someone everyone in Jewish society for the most part would have looked down on, this tax collector.

He walks up and just says, Follow me. Who would have thought that this traitor to the Jewish people would be one who would just leave everything and begin following Jesus? And not only does he do that, but he then goes and he finds others who will also spend time and meet with Jesus. And part of what we see in the story is also the contrast, the irony of how others treat people like Matthew and his friends. Without regard for the reality of who God is and God’s mercy, and particularly from our standpoint, looking back, knowing who Jesus is, we should understand the incarnation. God coming in the flesh is itself a story of God dwelling among sinners. The whole reason he came was because I’m a sinner and you are a sinner, and we desperately needed him to come and do what he did.

1. Jesus Does Not See People as Disposable

And so who are we to look our nose down at others? Because maybe we imagine they have struggled more than we have, or they are some kind of bigger sinner than we are. This is the perspective of the scribes and the Pharisees as they look at people like Matthew, at the tax collectors and others who they just call the sinners. That’s what they call them. They weren’t worthy to be in their presence. They tried to keep away from these people. And ironically, Jesus does just the opposite.

These accounts remind us that Jesus does not see people as disposable or beyond hope. He sees people, all people, as people who can be forgiven, healed, and transformed by following him. Even those who, in the eyes of other humans, might seem to be the vilest, the worst. Jesus was really willing to talk to these people, not only talk to them, but in the complaint of the scribes and the Pharisees, he’s willing to sit down and eat with them. Think about the significance of something like table fellowship. What that message gives, that you’ll share a meal with somebody. And this is what they’re upset about that Jesus will go and he’ll sit with these traitors, these tax collectors, these people who work for Rome. He’ll sit with these people who we know are sinners and evil people.

And Jesus, he’ll go spend time with them. How could he do that? That’s because Jesus valued people.

In eternity. And he was willing to do everything he could, including going to the cross to make sure that was a possibility for anyone who was willing to take the step and follow him. We all have sinned, Paul tells us that, and we all desperately need Jesus’ love and his grace. And of Jesus, of course, acts this way. That’s what we see in the story. Jesus doesn’t restrict himself or keep himself from certain people. Jesus is willing to reach out and touch those who in the eyes of the world are defiled, who are unclean. We see this in the previous stories. In fact, in the stories of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, there’s a progression that takes place, especially in Mark and Luke, all together, where he heals a leper, then he cures a paralytic, and then he sits and eats with the tax collectors and sinners.

In Matthew, there’s a couple stories added between the leper and the paralytic, but it’s essentially the same flow. And what we’re seeing here is that Jesus has the power, yes, to heal the body, but also to heal the soul. And that’s the message given to us in the Gospels about Jesus and who he is and his power. He approaches Levi and says, Follow me, Levi hosts a great feast. This feast, it would have been maybe something like we would imagine like Hollywood or people, whoever it is we would think are just vile people. That’s how the Jewish society would have seen this. You know, celebrities, people who seem to just live for themselves, they’re quite wealthy, these tax collectors tended to be.

2. The So-Called Sinners More Aware of Their Need

And at the same time, ironically, he exposes the prejudice and the self-righteousness that plagues the supposed religious elite. These people who were supposed to be the guides, the leaders, who are supposed to be examples of how to act, those who were supposedly following the Torah, those who are supposed to be followers of God, who are to love neighbor as self. And yet it took God himself becoming flesh to demonstrate how empty the religion actually was, how self-righteous they had become, pushing aside people who knew actually how desperately they needed a solution, how they needed an answer. They grumbled because someone cared about these outcasts. Someone cared about the souls of these sinners, of these people who were not accepted by general society. And what’s strange about this story, and so many stories in the gospels, really, is that the so-called sinners were actually more aware of their need for Jesus’ message than those who thought of themselves as religious, as followers of God.

This surfaces a number of times. Another example of this is in Jesus’ parable in Matthew 21. I’m just going to paraphrase it. You’ll probably be familiar with it. It’s the parable of the two sons. You remember them? The father tells the sons to go and to work, and the first says, I’m not going. But then later changes his mind and he decides to go.

But then he doesn’t go. And when Jesus concludes the parable, do you know what he says? He tells the chief priests and the elders who are listening, the tax collectors and prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you. They’re the first son. They’re the ones who said no, but then change their heart, change their ways, and they decided to follow me. But you said you would go, and you just simply didn’t do it. And so Jesus’ mission here is actually not just for the tax collectors and sinners, as they would have called them. It is ultimately, as I think you pick up on a text, it is for everyone, even for the ones who are so blind at the moment that they don’t realize that they themselves are sinners too.

That they are the second son who said, I’ll go, but then doesn’t, they don’t go. And Jesus often works this way in multiple levels as he’s interacting with all people. He doesn’t want to push away the Pharisees and the scribes and the elders and the chief priests. He uses slightly different methods with them, but his ultimate goal is to help them all see their need for him. And sometimes that is trying to give sight to blind people who are self-righteous. And he uses a variety of ways to do that, including sometimes going and just eating with people they would never eat with, interacting with these people who are the lowest of society, and then reacting to the scribes and the Pharisees to try to help them see how off their perspective actually is.

If I look down on someone else, if I’ve reached a point where I just think someone else isn’t really worthy of being in a place like this or among God’s people, or it’s too good for them, or we’re at risk if we have people around us who just aren’t really good people and who are sinners. It is at that moment that I fail to see myself and others properly. I failed to have a heart like Christ. He loved these tax collectors and sinners so much that he would go sit and he would eat with them and interact with them and he would care about them. He cared about their lives, he cared about helping change who they were to become something better. And it meant something to him, not to restrict his access to them.

3. Jesus Welcomed, Received, Loved Sinners

Jesus also loved these tax collectors and sinners enough, as he says in his own words, to call them to repentance. So I want to take a moment to kind of work through these first two points together. The first of those is that Jesus welcomed, he received, he loved sinners. And in some ways, that’s a fairly popular concept in our culture, generally speaking. Modern culture has kind of turned Jesus into a 21st century philosopher where you should just kind of receive everything and be tolerant of everything. Jesus wouldn’t condemn anybody or anything, and to point out sins, you’d be mocked for acting that way and be told that you’re not like Christ. The world mostly wants to focus on the first aspect of Jesus, which is a little legitimate aspect that Jesus does welcome and receive sinners, but without the second part of this of what he actually calls people to do.

A total neglect of the expectations he has and the power that he has as he calls people to follow him. And I can understand why it’s a comforting doctrine, because what it teaches people is Jesus welcomes everybody, but he doesn’t actually expect anything of you, which is not the Jesus of Scripture. And what we see in even in this story, as he’s trying to explain to the scribes and the Pharisees what he’s about and what he’s trying to do, particularly in Luke’s account, he makes this point. People are sick, they need a physician. And what I’m trying to do here is I’m trying to come and heal people, and I’m calling them to repentance. He’s not calling people to just stay who they are. Jesus doesn’t reach out to sinners and to people who are struggling and say, you know what?

You just be you. Don’t worry about changing anything. I’m on your side. I got everything covered. No change is necessary in your life. That’s not what he’s about. We spent three weeks talking about what grace actually is. And that’s not how grace works. He blesses us, he bestows great blessings on us, and then grace is returned by those who value what Jesus has done for them. And you can even see this interaction to some degree happening in this story. Jesus cares enough about these people that he’s spending time with them, he’s eating with them. And it’s interesting in Mark’s account, this is alluded to in some way in all three Gospels, but in Mark’s account, he makes kind of a special emphasis about this in verse 15 of chapter 2.

It says, as he reclined at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. Why is it that many followed Jesus? Well, because he showed grace to them. He blessed them and he cared about them. And when we do that with people, when we demonstrate that, then people are going to have a natural reaction of wanting to give back what we’re giving.

He was willing, and by the way, table fellowship is a part of grace. Right? So in a patron client relationship, part of what happens in those situations, if you are a client of a patron, you often are sharing meals together. That’s part of how this works. Or they are part of this process in some way because that connotes a relationship, a bond. There’s something important there. Which is why this is so offensive to the scribes and the Pharisees that Jesus would actually do this. But it’s a statement being made by Jesus to these people that he has a relationship with them. He has a bond, he cares about them. And because of his actions and his demonstration of his love and his concern, Mark makes clear that many of these kinds of people are now following Jesus.

4. Jesus Is Telling People to Change

They are interested in what he has to say. But Jesus’ message isn’t just continue on living how you want to live. Actually, his message is quite the opposite. He is telling people to change, to give up their own life, to deny self, and to follow him. He invites them to come to him. He recognizes, and I think this is extremely important, particularly for people like tax collectors and sinners who are looked down on society. He’s saying, Hey, your life is difficult. If you will come to me, my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. I will give rest to your souls. When you try to do things in your way, and you’ve experienced the difficulties you face in walking in your own sins and living your own life the way you want to live it, and you see the painful burden that comes and the wrecked lives that happened because you’ve tried to bear your own yoke, and it’s hard, the healing message is take on my yoke, because my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

To those who are enslaved to the lies and the emptiness of the world, but those who now have a willingness to receive his invitation to come.

God has done so much for us.

5. Jesus Calls to Repentance, What He Offers Is Healing

And so while Jesus calls people to repentance, what he offers is healing. In Matthew’s account, if you want to look at Matthew chapter 9, when the Pharisees grumble and complain. Matthew records these words. The ones you’ve already heard, that those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. But then he throws in this little textual thing that’s interesting. Go and learn what this means. He says, I’m going to point you to the Old Testament. Go and learn what this means. I desire mercy and not sacrifice. For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners. Jesus is quoting Hosea 6 and verse 6. There’s a lot of interesting details about Hosea as a prophet and what he’s doing here, but he’s recognizing a lot of the vileness of God’s people, their unfaithfulness.

They go through a lot of motions. They can say a lot of right things and they can offer sacrifices and go through some rituals, but deep down their hearts are not actually committed. And so he points these Pharisees, these scribes, who he’s essentially equating to the same sort of personality in reality. You say all the right things and you offer the sacrifices and you look holy and righteous and all of this, but actually the real problem is that God desires, and the word in Hosea is Hesed. God desires covenant loyalty. God desires your heart. That’s probably how we would say it, your allegiance. Not that you can just go through the motions and that you can do the right things, but he desires you as a person.

And what he’s indicating here, through the contrast of what’s taking place, is these tax collectors and sinners, they realize their need and they’ll do whatever it takes to be right. And yet you stand here grumming and complaining because they haven’t gone through the motions the right way. They haven’t lived up to your standards. So go and learn what this means. I desire mercy. Jesus is after the heart.

And the reality is every single one of us has things in our life in the past or in the present that we’re not proud of, that we’ve struggled with. And Jesus is not looking for people who’ve done it all right and who are perfect. He’s looking for people who want to be faithful to him. And even in their problems and their struggles, they know where to turn and they know who to look to, and they know there’s an answer, not in self, not in the world, that’s not going to bring fulfillment, but in Jesus Christ, who gives this invitation that he will give rest.

That what Jesus is looking for, it’s not about how big our offerings are or how religious we can look or even how good we’ve been for so long. What he’s really looking for is humble hearts who realize how badly they need the healing power of Jesus in their lives. So when Jesus said, those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick, I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. He was actually talking to everyone in the room. He wasn’t just talking about the tax collectors or the people who had been labeled sinners by the scribes and the Pharisees. What he’s trying to help them see is that they were all just as sick as anyone else. And particularly the scribes and the Pharisees were just as blinded by their own self-righteousness as the tax collectors and sinners may have been caught up in their own sin and enslaved by it.

6. Everybody's in a Bad Position Without Jesus

And to think about is our own condition in relationship to God. Particularly if Jesus was not part of the equation. If Jesus was not here, if God had not kept his plan, this is hard to imagine, but if he had not done what he said he was going to do, where would that put us? I mean, what if we did this all the time and we said all the right things and we did all the right things, but Christ didn’t die for our sins. He wasn’t created. What kind of standing will we have before God? We would have zero standing before God.

Everybody’s in a bad position without Jesus. And so no matter the depth of our sin, no matter the depth of your sin this morning, God has the power to deliver you from the power of darkness and to transfer you in the kingdom of his son, Paul tells us in Colossians 1 13 through 14. Jesus will receive even the worst of sinners. Prostitutes, addicts, murderers, tax collectors, sinners, and even self-righteous religious elites. Anyone who’s humble enough to acknowledge their own sinfulness and their need for Jesus’ mercy, he will receive. And he has the power to heal. So if you feel this morning that you’re unworthy, or you’re hopeless, or you’re lost, I want you to know that you are in the right place. And it’s not because this church has the answer.

It’s because we know Jesus is the answer. It’s because we can point you to this, to stories like we just read that teach us it’s all about Jesus and his healing power and what he has to offer. And understanding that all we can do is just follow the words of Jesus and what he has told us. It’s not because I have such good things to say or our elders have such good things to say. Everything that we have and everything that we gain that’s worth anything is coming from this. And from the ministry and the work of Jesus Himself. And what we see from Jesus Himself is that He loves you. No matter what you’ve done. He desperately wants all sinners to come into repentance. You and I are a part of His creation, and He loves every single one of us.

Conclusion

And He doesn’t want any of us to be lost. He wants all of us to enjoy eternity together with Him. So maybe you have that feeling this morning. If you do, know that Jesus is looking for people like you. People who know they’re sick. People who know they need help, who know something’s missing in their life, and who are ready to receive the healing power of the great physician. He invites you to come. He wants you to give yourself to him. People, we don’t go to doctors and we don’t think we’re sick. That’s his point. If you don’t, if you don’t think you’re sick, you’ll just keep going on about your life. And sometimes that happens in ways we don’t even understand, and we find out later we are actually way more sick than we realized.

That’s a reality at times. But if you know you’re sick, if you know things aren’t right, you’ve come to the right place to Jesus, the physician. He’s ready to heal and to help those who are sick. Those are the people he’s calling. Those are the people he wants, the ones who realize how desperately they need him. He is gentle.

And you will find rest for your soul.

And his burden is light. Can we help you this morning? If you want to make it known that you need Jesus in your life, that you need to change, you need to follow his call. You can come down to the front, or you can talk to me afterwards, or you can talk to one of the elders. And we can work to help you on this path and this journey to get your life with Jesus Christ. Start making decisions that are in alignment with what he wants. And honoring him, and in process, allowing him to heal you, to make you full, to give you a life of purpose. Can we help you this morning? Why don’t you come now as we stand and we sing? I know that my being for me.

I will be circle by being sin and so free. I know I know that might be.

Please be seated. Before we have the introduction to the Lord’s Supper, the emblems were at the front door, and if you didn’t receive them this morning, if you would just raise your hand. We have guys come around and give this to you real quick.

Last week, some of our family went to see the movie The Sheep Detectives. We’re not highbrow.

Cute film, entertaining, thumbs up from the Purcell clan. It’s a detective story, but the who done it part isn’t the real appeal of the film. The appeal comes in the interactions of the sheep with one another, and how funny it is when they make their foray into the world of humanity, which they don’t fully understand. At one point, the some of the sheep are walking through town past what is presumably an Anglican church given where the movie is set. And that building obviously looks different from other buildings in town. And one sheep explains that this is where God lives, and another sheep asks, about God? Needs some explanation. So a paraphrase, because I don’t remember the words exactly, the explanation is well, he is a shepherd, but he’s also a lamb, and he’s invisible and he’s made of bread, and they eat him on Sundays.

But in the context of the movie, where these are sheep just trying to understand some of the snippets of things that they have heard about human culture, it kind of makes the point that the pieces that they’ve heard might all be true, but they are not always simple and straightforward to understand. And although we might think of those sheep as simplistic, the people in Jesus’ day and even in our own day don’t always find Jesus easy to understand. The sheep have heard that God is bread, and we know what that means, but there were people in John 6 who heard that message about Jesus as the bread of life, that they needed to eat his body and drink his blood and things like that, and they thought that was confusing and a little scary, maybe.

And from that day it says many went back and walked no more with him. They said, this is a hard saying. Who can understand it? They didn’t understand it, so they went away. 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 19, Paul describes the word of the cross as foolishness or folly to those who were perishing. And in verse 23, he says that the idea of Christ crucified is a stumbling block to some and foolishness to others. A few verses later in chapter 2, beginning in verse 7, he says that the gospel proclaims the wisdom of God and a mystery, the hidden wisdom, which God before, or which God ordained before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age knew, for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

Even people who are familiar with the Bible and with Christianity can have a hard time finding the right way to describe what exactly Jesus did. Have you ever done any reading on theories of the atonement? Can make your head hurt. Mine anyway, I don’t have Ezekiel’s forehead of stone. But it was interesting to sing the song this morning in Christ alone and recognize that when you when you read people talking about the penal substitutionary view of the atonement or the moral influence explanation or Christus Victor, because some people want to talk in Latin or the ransom theory or whatever, that ideas in that song moved between from one of those theories of atonement to the other, which I probably wouldn’t have thought about if I hadn’t been doing some reading on that in preparation for this.

But the point is it’s kind of messy sometimes to hear people describe what they think is the main point of what Jesus did. Is it mostly about release from slavery? Is it released from death, or is it adoption into a family? Which one of those is the most important? Well, there are many ways of describing aspects of the cross, and if we try and put them all together for somebody who knows who doesn’t know the story, we might find ourselves sounding a little bit like those sheep sometimes. But if you start to lean too heavily into the discussion of which one of these descriptions is the best one, it’s hard to do. And it reminds me of something that Walt Whitman wrote, which I don’t usually recommend Whitman, but you know, every once in a while.

He wrote a short poem about this phenomenon. He said, When I heard the learned astronomer, when the proofs, the figures were ranged in columns before me, when I was shown the charts and the diagrams to add, divide and measure them, when I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture room, how soon unaccountable I became tired and sick till rising and gliding out, I wandered off by myself in the mystical moist night air, and from time to time looked up in perfect silence at the stars. Whitman says that talking about anything can sometimes distract us from the thing itself, can cause us to think too abstractly about it, stealing our appreciation because we’re lost in peripheral thoughts. So he says, talking all day, or in his case all night, about the details of astronomy is fine, but no astronomer can match the effects of simply walking out into the night and looking up at the stars.

Sometimes you have to remind yourself of the basics of what you’re talking about. And in fact, I mentioned John 6 a little bit earlier, Jesus’ hard sayings there about himself as the bread, and that many found it difficult to understand, and they went away, and Jesus asked his disciples, Will you also go away? And Peter, he didn’t know anything about Walt Whitman, but he knew the idea anyway. Peter didn’t say, I’m sticking around because I understand everything that you just said. Jesus. He said he was sticking around because he understood the basics, the fundamentals. Where should we go? Lord, you have the words of eternal life. He didn’t understand everything that Jesus had just said, but he knew that the way to eternal life was with him.

Part of the beauty of the Lord’s Supper, which we will partake this morning, is its simplicity and its call for us to remember the death of Jesus at the most basic level. The human body that hung on a cross and bled and died. That’s the center of the story. However, whatever other things you may want to say about the story, that is the thing that is at the center of it. And so as we partake this morning, sure, there are theological terms that we can bring to bear. But these elements ask us to leave those things behind and to look up in silence, not at the stars, but at a human body on a cross, bleeding and dying because it was necessary for our sake. As we partake, we look simply unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, vising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Let’s pray for the bread.

Pray these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Pray once again for the cup. Father, we thank you also for this cup, which calls to our mind the blood of the covenant, which was shed for many for the remission of sins. We ask you to help us to honor that covenant in our lives because we remember the sacrifice of blood. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

We’d love to have you back again. We meet again today at 5 p.m. for Bible classes for all ages, young to old. Handful of announcements to go through today. Noah Nelson was recently baptized, so we rejoice with him and his family. Philip Shrei will be taking photos the next few weeks during worship services. So, kids, please do not look at the camera. Just act normal. Well, better than normal.

Adults, also don’t look at the camera. Just do your thing.

We’re all in here for a singing. There are new class signup sheets in the foyer as well. Group three, that’s Blake and Thad’s group, meets tonight after services in the upstairs room. And that is all I’ve got. We’ll see you all again today at 5 p.m. We’ll now be dismissed.

It’s been wonderful to lead you this morning. A shield about me. Slides up.

Let’s pray. Almighty Lord, how great you are. Father, we thank you for this day that you have given us. That we, as family, as friends, as visitors. Each of us have come from various walks of life. Each of us are in different phases of our lives. Some may be walking through moments of joy. Others through moments of challenges. And more often than not, we’re walking through each of those types of moments at the same time. We come together to give praise and glory to you. Thank you for being our shield. In his name we pray. Amen.