And yeah, it's been a while, right?
Seems like forever.
And I was doing the O.J. Simpson thing through airports last weekend.
You know, doing a little ducking and diving and running.
I almost missed my connection from Seattle to Spokane.
But a great time, opportunity to share the Lord with folks
and honor an old friend for sure.
So if you have your Bible,
we're going to finish the ninth chapter
of the Gospel of Luke.
And some pretty strong words from our Lord here.
And I hope you're thankful for even those hard things in life, right?
Reading through devotional
reading through Jonah this morning where he's he's praying. He's praying inside the fish, right?
He's got seaweed wrapped around his head. And what does he do? He offers up a sacrifice of
Thanksgiving. And I think that sometimes Thanksgiving is a sacrifice because we don't feel
thankful about certain things that happened in our life. And as I was coming home, flying home from
Washington on Monday, I was just thinking, Lord, I'm thankful for death. I'm thankful for death
that it actually makes life that much sweeter. Right? Think if there was no death. Now,
we're going to get to experience that.
But one reason I'm thankful for death right now is doing a service yesterday as well
as being able to point people who through the fear of death their whole lifetime
have been shackled and to be able to point them to the Lord Jesus that they could be free
from those bonds, from that bond of the fear of death.
And however, I do look forward to that day when we won't have to deal with death.
Death, the Bible, says, will be no more.
Can you say amen?
Amen.
Yeah.
And that's what I'm thinking.
And I'm thinking that it's going to be no more.
And we left off last time when Jesus was encouraging his disciples because
the dispute had risen among the disciples about who's the greatest.
Well, I'm, I'm greater than you are.
Man, isn't that just arrogant?
And yet that's who we are.
And that's who the disciples were.
They were just this pompous trying to one up one another.
And Jesus kind of puts them in their place when he grabs a little child and he
sets him in the midst and says, whoever receives this little child receives me.
And so, but it doesn't stop there. It continues on. And that's what we're going to look at here.
So starting in verse 49, it says, and now John, this is the Apostle John, now John answered and said,
Master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we forbade him because he does not follow with us.
But Jesus said to him, do not forbid him, for he who is not against us is on our side.
Now it came to pass when the time had come for him to be received up that he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem.
And he sent messengers before his face, and as they went, they entered a village of the Samaritans,
prepare for him, but they did not receive him. And because his face was set for the journey to
Jerusalem, and when his disciples, James and John saw this, they said, Lord, do you want us to command fire,
to come down from heaven and consume them, just as Elijah did? But he turned and rebuked them and said,
you do not know what manner of spirit you are of, for the son of man did not come to destroy men's
lives but to save them. And they went to another village. Now it happened as they journeyed on the road
that someone said to him, Lord, I will follow you wherever you go. And Jesus said to him,
foxes have holes, birds of the air have nests. But the son of man has nowhere to lay his head.
Then he said to another, follow me. But he said, Lord, let me first go and bury my father. And Jesus said to him,
let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God.
And another also said, Lord, I will follow you, but let me first go and bid them farewell
who are at my house. But Jesus said to him, no one having put his hand to the plow and looking
back is fit for the kingdom of God. Let's pray. Lord, thank you that this is your word. Lord,
and I just pray that we would receive it as such, Lord, that it's powerful words. Lord, you call us to an all-out
following of our king. Lord, not half-hearted, not halfway, not I think so, but Lord, you call us,
and you call us to yourself. And Lord, that nothing should rival that calling. And so I just pray
that we would find ourselves in a place this morning,
Lord, where we want to be yielded to you totally and completely. And I know we all have work to do,
Lord, and Lord, I know we have things in our lives, Lord, that we need to not let it slip in,
Lord, whether it's a lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life that would
divert us from following what you have called us to do. And so Lord Jesus, we just invite you to be our
teacher this morning. Holy Spirit that you would come and minister to each one of our hearts.
We pray it in the mighty and powerful name of Jesus. Amen. So, so here he is, right? He just tries to
settle this dispute with the, with the who's the greatest. And then we have verse 49 and 50, but now John
answered and said, master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name and we forbade him because
he does not follow with us.
And Jesus rebukes him.
But Jesus said to him, do not forbid him, for he who is not against us is on our side.
Here, John's kind of watered up.
They're casting out demons.
Those other people, those Lutherans over there.
Well, they're not a cowboy church.
Don't we have an exclusivity on this spiritual stuff?
aren't we like the true church?
Not.
No, I mean, it's like,
and I wonder if John's watered up
because they had tried casting out a demon
and they couldn't.
And they see this guy doing it and go,
well, how come he can do it?
And we can't.
We better tell on him.
We're telling on him.
aren't people like that people are so it's like well we go to this church well listen if you find the
perfect church please don't go there because you will screw it up right it's a miracle any of us get out of this
thing uh and get to heaven let me tell you we're all just scraping by by the skin of our teeth
spiritually speaking, praise God, there's people out there that preach Jesus. Maybe not like we do.
Their ways aren't like, well, I don't even know if we have any ways here, but at least we have
Jesus, right? And some people have to, some people have to get crazy, right? Some people got to jump up
and down and they got to, you know, do some pew jumping and a little bit of flopping on the ground
down here to feel like they're spiritual. God bless them.
I don't need that.
And some people have to have a robe.
And they have to do liturgy, and they have to do things the same way every Sunday.
Now, we might call that vain repetition, but maybe not.
And so, John, no telling what his motive was here,
but he got rebuked.
And he says, no.
You leave him alone.
If he's casting out demons, people are being delivered from the demonic.
Shouldn't you be rejoicing in that?
Not comparing.
That's the sad thing about us people.
We compare.
Paul said, you compare yourselves among yourselves, and in doing so, you are.
are not wise. Why do you do that? The only one you should compare yourself to is Jesus.
And that puts us all on the same level, right? And if we haven't repented, that means we're all
on a highway to hell. Because we're all the same. Some look a lot better than others. Some look like
they should go to hell.
Praise God, he doesn't look on the outside, right?
That's what man looks at.
That's what we look at.
But he looks at the heart.
He looks at the heart.
So Jesus here is really forbidding sectarianism.
He's forbidding it.
I've always told people, you know, because, hey, I've been involved in church splits.
right? And just so you know, this wasn't a split for us to start out west, but there's three or four
churches that have come from water springs, right? That's where we got our beginnings. That's
really who we are in a lot of ways. And people say, well, it's us and them. It's never.
us and them in the church. It's just us, right? You can choose your friends. You're stuck with your
family. It's just us. Right? It's just us as believers. And we come in all shapes and sizes and
flavors. And who do we think we are anyway? Right? Do we, we, we,
People think we have a corner on the truth?
No, Jesus has a corner on the truth.
He's the one that we need to be following.
And so he says, do not forbid him, for he who is not against us is on our side.
Jesus really was trying to encourage.
You guys need to be a little more gracious.
Fire down from heaven, seriously?
You want to fry these guys?
But that they would rejoice that this person
it actually was casting out a demon in Jesus' name.
Now there are many that are wrong in some aspect of their presentation or teaching.
And really, when you say wrong,
according to who, yet they still set forth Jesus in some manner.
And for that we must rejoice.
For that we must rejoice.
And let God deal with whatever's wrong.
I got so much stuff going on.
I really don't worry about too many other people and what they're doing as far as ministry
goes.
Because I'm just trying to fulfill what God's called me to do.
And I don't do it very good.
I feel like I'm behind the eight ball a lot.
And who am I to go judge somebody's?
Oh, now that ain't right.
Like God can't rebuke them?
You guys remember when Saul was king and David Haddy's,
David Haddy's back, right?
In the MMA world, you don't give him your back or you're dead.
David Haddy's back several times he could have killed Saul.
And he refused.
He said, no, that's God's anointed.
God had a calling on that man's life.
I dare not touch him.
God will deal with him.
Just know that God will deal with false teachers.
Islam is coming to America like a freight train, folks.
What do we do with that?
I don't know.
I honestly don't know.
Because if you honestly read the Quran,
right? If you honestly read the Quran, you and I, infidels should all be dead.
And so, I mean, the verdict's still out for me. I don't know how to do that. Can God squelch it? Sure he can.
Because God want us to rise up? I don't know, maybe. But we'll cross that when it's presented to us. We'll cross that bridge.
but Romans 14 says something interesting.
And I think I want you to take this to heart
when you consider your own life
and you consider other people who teach things
that maybe you're not down with.
But he says this.
He says, who are you to judge another's servant?
To his own master, he stands or falls.
Indeed, he will be made to stand
for God is able to make him stand.
Who are we to judge?
judge. Paul says, judge yourselves. You know what? I got so much sin in my life. I don't really
worry about anybody else. I'm spending all my energy fighting my fire. And you should be too.
Before you start pointing other peoples is out.
Those who are not against a biblical Jesus are on our side.
Right?
Those who are not against a biblical Jesus are on our side, at least in some way.
Paul saw many men preaching Christ from many, many different motives.
Some of them were evil motives, yet he could rejoice that Christ was being preached.
Whatever the motive.
At least Jesus is being preached.
I had a great-grandpa that was quite the rounder.
Interpretation, a rounder was a womanizing, drinking, you know, cheating dog.
That was my grandpa.
His name was Willie Brown.
And my great-grandma said, nobody preached a better gospel message than Willie Brown.
that boy could preach.
But then he'd go cheat on his wife
and steal his son's money
until my grandpa got big enough to whip him.
He was just a no account,
but boy, could that boy preach Jesus?
He was Elmer Gantry before there was an Elmer Gantry.
Who knows who Elmer Gantry is?
Very few.
But Paul tells us, in Philippians chapter one, he says,
Some indeed preach Christ even from envy and strife,
and some also from goodwill.
The former preached Christ for selfish ambition,
not sincerely supposing to add affliction to my chains,
but the latter out of love, knowing that I am appointed
for the defense of the gospel.
What then?
Only that in every way,
whether in pretense or in truth,
Christ is preached.
And in this, I rejoice and I will rejoice.
I know a guy who's a pastor now.
He got saved at a Bob Dylan concert.
Go figure.
Right?
I think it's when he said,
you've got to serve somebody.
It might be the devil or he might be the Lord.
And he just,
could see Jesus pointing a big finger at him in a Bomb Dylan concert.
But then he goes on and as Jesus is getting ready to go towards his sacrifice on the cross,
it says in verse 51, now it came to pass when the time had come for him to be.
be received up, that he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem and sent messengers before his
face. And as they went, they entered a village of the Samaritans to prepare for him, but they did not
receive him because his face was set for the journey to Jerusalem. And when his disciples, James and
John saw this, they said, Lord, do you want, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven
and consume them even as Elijah did?
They're still jockeying for position, these guys.
Notice it says he had his, he, he set his face.
He was ready to go and to be received up,
to be received up in glory,
but he first had to be received up on the cross.
Jesus did.
And he knew what was coming.
This is like a new section.
in the gospel of Luke.
Jesus was on his way.
He was on his way there,
and he knew what was going to happen.
And he just was going up, going up, going up to the cross,
but then had to go down into the grave.
And then we see him ascend,
where he sits down at the right hand of the Father.
But it says his,
His face, twice here it says his face was set.
This is a fulfillment of scripture in the Old Testament, Isaiah chapter 50, verse 7.
It says, for the Lord God will help me.
Therefore, I will not be disgraced.
Therefore, I have set my face like Flint, and I know that I will not be ashamed.
You know what he was going to purchase.
You and me.
he was serious about it
if Jesus was that serious for us folks
ought we not to be serious for him
we've got nothing to lose
right
I don't know what you've got in this life
you know
I'm working on my 64th year now
and I've tasted everything this life has to offer.
There's nothing out there that I need.
Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Because, you know, it's boast.
It's boast is only labor and sorrow.
This life's only boast.
But I can face every day with a smile on my face knowing what's coming.
right?
Yoohoo!
Makes me giddy.
Yeah, even when I can't jump as high as I used to.
But his face was set like Flint.
I was looking at this,
in the Greek, it means to set fast,
like fast-setting concrete.
Boom, once it's set, it's set.
There's no moving it.
And that's the way Jesus was in his attitude
the cross.
And it really should be our attitude
towards him.
Like the Proverbs, I love that
Proverbs, right? The righteous
are as bold as a
lion.
A beast whom
fears nothing
or no one.
Now Jesus
gives these guys a rebuke.
We want to be like Elijah.
You know,
pshh.
Krispy Critter
reminds me of that
that little story I heard.
I got to share it with you.
This brother was preaching and he says,
now in life, you only have two things to worry about.
How many have heard this?
In life, you only have two things to worry about
whether you're healthy or whether you're sick.
With you healthy,
healthy, you've got nothing to worry about.
If you're sick, you've got two things to worry about.
right
getting better or getting worse
if you're better you got nothing to worry about if you're worse
you got two thinks to be worried
You go to heaven, you've got nothing to worry about.
You go to hell, you got two things to worry about.
Original or extra crispy.
I don't think there's no original about it. It's just extra crispy.
So James and John, they either misread Jesus on this.
They either misread Jesus on this or they are just murderous dogs.
I think they're just murderous dogs.
I don't think there's no misreading this at all.
And it goes along with what Jesus taught us, right,
And the sermon on the mouth, you know, when he said, you have heard it said, right?
To hate your enemies.
But I say to you, if you call somebody an idiot, you're in danger of the judgment.
I did that coming to church this morning.
I reminded myself,
that kind makes me so mad,
he drives just like me, you know?
But they, they had this heart.
And he, he says, he rebukes them.
They wanted to forego grace and mercy.
Is that you?
You want to forego grace and mercy?
mercy? You don't want to extend mercy to somebody, to people that God loves and that Jesus
died for? It is amazing to me how quick I get in that place. They need to die. And the
Lord whispers to me, and so do you, buddy. Right? No, because of the mercy and grace you
and I have experienced we should be quick, right, to grant that mercy and grace.
Jesus is telling these guys, listen, you don't even know how wicked you are.
You're of a different spirit, right?
In another place, he called them the sons of thunder, erbo energies.
You guys don't even know what spirit you're of?
Do you know what spirit you're of?
Can you tell?
Because sometimes we're like that, that shifting sand or that, that wave tossed to and fro.
We're gracious and merciful today.
Oh yeah, but no, we're murders to, you know, tomorrow.
Oh, Jesus is going to know.
I came not to kill, not to take life, but to save it.
That's why I came.
And you guys need to be and have that same mindset.
So then he has three that want to follow him, and he challenges them.
We'll read 57 through 62.
It says, now it happened as they journeyed on the road that some said to him, Lord,
I will follow you wherever you go.
Many believe this is from Matthew chapter 8, one of the scribes.
And Jesus said to him, foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests,
but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head.
Then he said to another, follow me.
But he said, Lord, let me go first and bury my father.
And Jesus said to him, let the dead bury their dead.
But you go and preach the kingdom of God.
And another also said, Lord, I will follow you, but let me first go.
and bid them farewell who are at my house.
But Jesus said to him, no one having put his hand to the plow, and looking back is fit for the kingdom.
Three guys.
They all have excuses.
Someone has rightly said excuses are like feet.
Most people have them, and they all stink.
Three men could have become disciples here,
but they would not meet the conditions that Jesus laid down.
The first man, right?
Like I said, was a scribe probably out of Matthew chapter 18, verse 19,
who volunteered to go until he heard the cost.
He had to deny himself.
Apparently, he was accustomed to a comfortable home.
And Jesus reminded him,
You sure you want to follow me?
Foxes have dens, right?
And then fox, you can see.
They go out and they kind of get after, mouse, and all that stuff.
And they get at a place they can go rest for the evening.
So too with a bird and bring food back to their babies.
The son of man has nowhere to lay his head.
Are you sure you want to follow him?
And it's important that we do count the costs.
It's like the old song, no turning back.
I have decided to follow Jesus.
I sing that song in my heart, yes, but I always question,
do I really follow him fully?
Because that's what he's called me to.
Not just because I'm standing up here, you guys,
but that's what he's called you to too, too, also.
No comfort here.
The second man was called by Jesus.
What an honor.
Jesus said, hey, well, follow me.
Isn't that what he said to the disciples?
When they were there fishing, you remember, Peter and Andrew and James and John,
hey, follow me.
And I will make you fishers of men.
The catch that you catch will have an eternal value.
But he was rejected because he would not take up the cross and die to self.
He was worried about somebody else's funeral when he should have been planning his own.
I like that. Those are the words of Warren Weirsby.
Years ago when I heard my nephew singing the song,
Come and Dine.
Come and dine at the master's table.
Come and dying.
I thought he was saying, come and die.
Come and die at the master's table.
Come and die.
And I think they both fit, right?
Because when you come and die,
then you get to go and dine.
Right?
Amen?
When we come and die to say,
right? And he had told them that in the earlier part of this chapter, right, that you
you must deny yourself and pick up your instrument of death and come and follow me.
Now what's interesting about this is he says, oh, but let me let me go bury my dad first.
And in that culture, right, it was a cultural imperative to give your father a proper burial in that
Right, you remember Jacob, the big entourage they had at his funeral.
And then Joseph, they packed his bones out of Egypt.
And these were, this was a big deal.
But Jesus said, and there's something so much more important.
So much more important.
Is you doing what you're called to do?
it's more important than even making sure your parent has a proper burial.
Now he's not suggesting that we dishonor our parents,
but only that we not permit our love for family to weaken our love for the Lord.
And he talks about that, right?
That in comparison, it's like a hatred in comparison.
I got to serve God, first and foremost.
So we should love Christ Jesus so much
that our love for our family would be, in comparison, much less.
And then the third man, he also volunteered, but he could not follow
Christ because he was looking back instead of a head.
Years ago, my grandpa, I was eight years old and I was colivating beans.
And this is down in the Magic Valley where we have corgates.
Who knows what corgates are, right?
Up here they got, you flood or your sprinkle or whatever.
Down there, they got corgates.
And so you have to make sure that water runs down every single row.
And when I was culivating beans, he said, now, he says, you get your tractor tire,
in between the rows, and he says, and you focus clear to the end, you look straight ahead.
Don't be looking black.
Now, you can glance back, and I glanced back a couple times, and there were beans flying everywhere.
I was pulling them out of the ground.
But the focus was to be straight ahead.
He says, you pick a spot, you focus on it, and you drive to it.
And that's how you did that.
And that's what the Lord's talking about here.
You don't want to be crooked, right?
Set your face, just like Jesus is set in his face here to go to the cross.
You set your face towards him.
Now, there's nothing wrong with a loving farewell.
You remember First Kings chapter 19 when Elisha was called, right?
And he was going to go home and say goodbye to his family.
And he kind of sealed the deal when he offered up the ox and he was plowing with.
He realized, no, God's called me to something different.
and I'm not going to be plowing no ground no more.
We'd be plowing souls.
But it can't get in the way of our obedience to him.
Jesus saw that this man's heart was not totally with him.
What about you?
But that he would be trying to do this thing in looking back.
I was talking to a pastor friend of mine, and he was with a pretty, had married into a fairly
prominently famous family, and they were musicians, and they had these huge concerts,
and they got invited to come, him and his wife, and his wife was the only girl with all these
brothers, and he gets there to this big concert they're having, and all the guys who had, at one
time or another, given their life to Christ, and now that seemed to be very distant, right?
It was just party on, dude.
And this pastor friend of mine, and he's looking, he says, I'm watching all these guys.
And I'm thinking, wow, they sure are having fun.
Right?
And he was kind of enticed for a minute.
And he says, the Holy Spirit whispered in his ear.
He said, Dan, it's a lie.
It's a lie.
They're miserable.
Right?
Because they knew where they should have been in walking with Jesus and they weren't there.
They'd gone back.
they looked back
kind of like a lot's wife
right
she looked back
Genesis 1926
but his wife
looked back behind him and she became
a pillar of salt
you can't go back
what are you going to go back to
I look back at my life and think
what would I go back to
there's nothing there
it's just emptiness
emptiness, like Solomon said, it's all just an empty hole without Jesus, success,
prominence, whatever. It's all absolutely nothing.
Now, I do glance back occasionally just to remind me of what God has rescued me from, right?
mainly me.
And I'm so thankful for that.
And you press on, right?
You look ahead.
You put those things behind you.
And Paul talks about it in Philippians 3, where he says,
Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended but one thing.
I do.
For getting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead,
I press towards the goal for the prize of the upward call in Christ Jesus.
That's my focus.
That's what I'm pursuing.
Because this other stuff will trip you up and mess you up.
Now, as you look at this, and as you just read through this,
it would appear that what Jesus taught his disciples in the multitudes had done them little good.
They just weren't getting it, right?
They lacked power, love, and discipline, and they grieved his heart.
If today we lack these spiritual essentials, we can never truly be his disciples.
But they are available, right?
The old saying is true.
God does not call the qualified, right?
He qualifies the called.
So God will call you, and then he'll give what you need.
I was talking to somebody the other day was telling me about a pastor.
He said, this pastor is such an introvert.
I said, well, that ain't my problem.
I said, I fly by the seat of my pants, and I like to be in the middle of all kinds of stuff.
But he says, but when he gets in the pulpit, he's not.
I said, awesome.
That's God's equipment for his calling.
He gets in the pulpit.
He brings forth the word with power and with,
with personality and with energy.
That's the Holy Spirit, right?
Because then God gets all the glory.
This calling that Jesus puts on our life,
I like to compare it to the law that God gave Moses.
Right?
God gives Moses this law.
And what do the people do?
They break it.
Right?
The law of God is good, but it's impossible.
You and I, we can't keep it.
Every jot, every tittle, ever crossing of the teas and the dotting of the eyes.
We, in commas and all this stuff, we look at it and we just fall terribly short.
And the Bible says it's a schoolmaster to drive us to Jesus.
It's the same way with the calling.
When God calls you, it's like a schoolmaster.
When God put a calling on my life, I'm just saying.
thinking, Lord, I can't do this. I don't have any equipment. I don't know my hind in from the
hole in the ground. I'm just a dumb kid that barely graduate. Well, they graduated me just to get rid of me.
I don't know nothing. I mean, I have the same excuse when the Lord called me when my mom tried
sending me your first grade up. Mom, I don't know nothing. And so it was, it was like it drove
me. Jesus, I have to
stay close to you because I
have no idea what I'm doing.
But he and his
sovereignty and his power
and by the anointing of the Holy Spirit
he can use a fool.
You just have to determine who's fool
you want to be.
I was on my way to a rodeo
years ago and we stopped on our way
we were at this gas station right outside of Burns, Oregon.
I loved going to the Harney County rodeo there in Burns,
but this guy had a bumper snicker.
As I pulled in to get gas, he had a bumper snicker on the back of his car.
And it said, I am a fool for Jesus Christ.
Whose fool are you?
That's a good one.
But God,
has not given us a spirit of timidity, right, or of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound
mind. That's why Jesus came along, right? When we, and he calls us, and then he'll give us his
Holy Spirit, he called these guys, and they floundered, right? They scattered in fear when they arrested
Jesus. But all of a sudden, there in the upper room in the early chapters of the Book of Acts,
the Holy Spirit shows up and all the sudden these cowards, these selfish, you know, self-consumed people,
all of a sudden they become the foundation of the church.
All of them willing to give their lives for the Lord Jesus, willing to lay it down.
And they did.
They did.
Just reading through the book of James, I thought of his martyrdom.
The Lord's brother.
I believe it was this, James, that they chucked him from the top of the temple.
And he didn't die, so they beat him to death with clubs.
Because he followed his bro.
He followed Jesus.
We are a joy to Jesus when we surrender all, when we come,
and we give it all to him.
But I just got to tell you today, folks,
if you're going to follow Jesus half-heartedly,
he doesn't want you.
If you're going to follow him half-heartedly,
he doesn't want you.
That's hard to say because I know
that's probably offensive to some people.
well God wants everybody
yeah he wants them to surrender their life
that's what he wants
but if you're not willing to do that
you're not invited
Jonathan Edwards said this
seeking after the kingdom of God
is the chief business
of the Christian life
that's why you draw breath
is to point to the one who gives it.
I love what R.C. Sproles said.
He said, you do not get a diploma from the school of Jesus until you're in heaven.
Right?
You don't get a diploma from the school of Jesus until you're in heaven.
And that's really confirmed in his letter to the church.
of Laotasia there in chapter three of the revelation.
And I'm just going to read it to you before we take communion.
And this is the lukewarm church.
This is the half-hearted church.
And he says,
And to the angel of the church of the Laoscians write these things,
says the amen, the faithful and true witness,
the beginning of the creation of God.
What a title.
I know your works that you are neither hot nor cold.
I could wish you were cold or hot so that because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold,
I will vomit you out of my mouth because you say I am rich and have become wealthy and have need of nothing.
And do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked.
I cancel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire that you may be rich and white garments that you may be
that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed and anoint your eyes with eyesab that you may see
as many as I love I rebuke and chasten therefore be zealous and repent behold I stand at the door
and knock if anyone hears my voice and opens the door I will come into him and dine with him
and he with me to him who overcomes I will grant to sit with me on my throne as I also
overcame and sat down with my father on his throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what this
spirit says to the churches. Maybe he's knocking. You know what? You've been messing around.
You need to go deeper. You need to go all or nothing. All or nothing.
Repent. He says, you're poor, you're blind and you're naked.
but their bank accounts were full.
They said they had need of nothing.
Is that you?
Is that us?
Is America?
It's time to turn to him with all that we are.
And so with that, I'm going to invite the worship team to come up.
We're going to enter into communion.
You know, the Bible says that when you take communion,
it's important to examine yourself.
right examine your heart maybe you shouldn't you're not in a place where you should remember
and come to that place of communion but i think that can you can overcome that really quick
you know first john one nine if we confess our sin he's faith unjust to forgive us our sin and
cleanse us from all in righteousness.
Maybe you just need to get right with him right now as you're holding the bread in your hand.
And as we get ready to pray for it, you can just bow your head and say, oh, Lord, I've just been
messing around.
I haven't been serious with you.
I haven't surrendered my life to you.
Please forgive me.
If you say something like that with a sincere heart, you're ready to take communion.
And if not, then please don't.
Because all you're doing is you're making your judgment hotter.
You're heaping judgment upon yourself.
So maybe just put it in your pocket.
No shame in that at all.
That's just wisdom.
Why would anybody on purpose heap judgment upon themselves?
And so we're going to go before the Lord
as Jesus that night
he said
this bread is a
symbolic of my body that's broken for you
when he gave his back to the smiters
right the psalmist says they plowed furrows
in his back
when they did
studies on this with cadavers they said between the 19th
and 25th lash you could push the flesh
apart and see the internal organs
his body that was broken for us.
He says,
as often as you do this, do this,
remember.
Remember the thorns that pierced his scalp
and the scourge on his back
and the nails through his hands and feet
and the spear in his side.
This body was just totally thrashed
on account of me and you.
And so, Lord, we come before you right now
and we lift the bread up.
before you, Lord, and just remember your great sacrifice, Lord.
Nothing in history can even come close to comparing to it.
Nothing.
And so we just remember you and that precious body that was broken on behalf of us.
Sin sacrifice.
the spotless lamb who became marred more than any human has ever been marred.
And so, Lord, we just remember you and thank you for that body
that you are willing to have stripped naked on our behalf.
You took our shame upon yourself that we truly deserved.
And we praise you for it.
Bless the red as we partake.
In Jesus' name, let's partake.
Likewise, he took the cup.
He said this blood is,
this is the new covenant in my blood.
Praise God, there's a new covenant.
Praise God.
Lord, thank you for that sinless blood
shed. I don't know all the scientific part of it, Lord, but I know it was perfect and it was acceptable.
And it was qualified to go to heaven, Lord, and be sprinkled in the Holy of Holies on our behalf, Lord.
You atoned for all of our sin with your precious blood that was shed.
You were truly that drink offering. You were poured out for us.
And so, Lord, we remember your precious blood that was shed.
Bless the cup as we partake in remembrance of this new covenant, Lord, that we can glory in.
In Jesus' name.
Amen, let's partake.
I'm going to ask a prayer team to come up now, and let's all stand.
These guys are going to lead us in a song of worship.
If you need prayer, please come up.