SPEAKER_03: This podcast is a ministry of Grand Parkway Baptist Church, helping people know, enjoy, and glorify God.
SPEAKER_03: For more information about Grand Parkway, visit Grandparkway.org.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we've come to bask in who you are, to remind ourselves and reorient ourselves around things that matter.
SPEAKER_00: So it's so easy to forget and to begin to value things that don't matter.
SPEAKER_00: And so, Holy Spirit, lead us into the truth today.
SPEAKER_00: Brood over us and love on us as your people, we pray in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: And everyone said, Amen.
SPEAKER_00: You can have a seat.
SPEAKER_00: If you've got a Bible, I invite you to open it up to Matthew chapter 6.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't have a Bible, I'm going to read four verses out of the Bible, and they're all going to come up on the screen right here.
SPEAKER_00: And let me just kind of speak to the obvious if you're our guest today.
SPEAKER_00: Or if you've never been here on a communion day, we are observing communion today.
SPEAKER_00: Which is what does that mean?
SPEAKER_00: There was a ritual that got instituted way back in the Old Testament in the book of Exodus, chapter 12, when he delivered his people from Pharaoh.
SPEAKER_00: Exodus means to leave, to get out, and so they got out in a hurry.
SPEAKER_00: And to commemorate that, they were that night they were making bread, the ladies were making bread.
SPEAKER_00: And before it had time to rise, before the yeast got time to rise, they said, Hey, you can't wait, you gotta go, because God's gonna send consequence on this people.
SPEAKER_00: And so he delivers his people in haste.
SPEAKER_00: So they left in haste.
SPEAKER_00: And so it was called Passover because the death angel passed over their houses and had mercy on them because they sacrificed a lamb and applied the blood of that lamb to the doorpost of their houses.
SPEAKER_00: And so when this death angel that God sent saw that, he passed over their houses.
SPEAKER_00: And so all through the Old Testament, it's called Passover.
SPEAKER_00: So the New Testament dawns, and Jesus kind of outs himself publicly, and a man named John the Baptist sees him.
SPEAKER_00: Now, by the way, the Bible doesn't tell 842 disconnected stories that have like a moral ending.
SPEAKER_00: It tells one story.
SPEAKER_00: This is what I mean.
SPEAKER_00: The New Testament, John the Baptist, who's trying to get people ready, he's telling people, I think you think you're ready, but you're not.
SPEAKER_00: He's gonna rock your world.
SPEAKER_00: I baptize you with water.
SPEAKER_00: This cat baptizes with the Holy Spirit and with fire.
SPEAKER_00: But then he sees Jesus coming, looks up, and he says, This.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the one story that God's been telling all along.
SPEAKER_00: John picks it up and says, Behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world.
SPEAKER_00: And he was telling people something that they didn't have a frame of reference for until after the fact.
SPEAKER_00: He was basically saying, God's made provision for our sin by sending a son.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus comes and he celebrates Passover.
SPEAKER_00: It's called the Last Supper.
SPEAKER_00: You've kind of seen the pictures, especially at your grandma's church.
SPEAKER_00: It's got Jesus and all the disciples on one side of the table.
SPEAKER_00: That's the Last Supper.
SPEAKER_00: You know the last thing he said at that, right?
SPEAKER_00: Everybody wants to get in the picture, come on this side of the table.
SPEAKER_00: No?
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: And so they're all on that side of the table.
SPEAKER_00: That's called the Last Supper.
SPEAKER_00: Really, that's where Jesus kind of takes Passover.
SPEAKER_00: Look at me now.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to me.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus takes Passover and he fills this ritual full of relationship.
SPEAKER_00: He holds up this piece of bread, this loaf of bread, and he said, This bread is my body that is given for you.
SPEAKER_00: And he takes it and he breaks it, he hands it to him.
SPEAKER_00: He says, as often as you do this, as often as you observe this ritual, remember this relationship.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus didn't come just to give us religious rituals.
SPEAKER_00: He says, as often as you do this, do this in remembrance of me.
SPEAKER_00: This this bread is my body, which is offered up and broken for you.
SPEAKER_00: Then he takes a cup of wine.
SPEAKER_00: Now, now relax, because every once in a while, we got really freed up people in our church.
SPEAKER_00: I love that.
SPEAKER_00: Because some of you email me and say, our church is so authentic.
SPEAKER_00: Why don't we ever have real wine at communion?
SPEAKER_00: Because I also have friends here who struggle with addiction, and that would cause them to relapse.
SPEAKER_00: And so before you email me today, and while I'm trying to watch the Patriots lose to the Texans, before you uh because I'm DVR and it don't ruin it for me, before you email me and go, why don't we do that?
SPEAKER_00: We're so authentic or so real, because I love my friends and I don't want to make them stumble.
SPEAKER_00: I have friends that are so addicted, have struggled with substance abuse to such a degree, one sip can see them careening in the wrong direction.
SPEAKER_00: And some of them are sitting around you right now.
SPEAKER_00: See what beautiful sinners you go to church with?
SPEAKER_00: Aren't you glad?
SPEAKER_00: I'm being serious.
SPEAKER_00: You should be so glad right now that, oh my gosh, I don't have to be phony and religious and act like I've got it all together.
SPEAKER_00: You don't.
SPEAKER_00: So, Jesus holds up a cup of wine and he says, This cup is the new covenant in my blood.
SPEAKER_00: As often as you drink this, drink this in remembrance of me.
SPEAKER_00: And now, why does he say that?
SPEAKER_00: Because if you went to church as a little kid, usually they had a table right in front of the pulpit and it sat on the front edge, somebody routed in there, this doing remembrance of me.
SPEAKER_00: That's what they're talking about.
SPEAKER_00: Because we're hardwired to forget.
SPEAKER_00: We're hardwired to get caught up in the schedules.
SPEAKER_00: We're hardwired to, I come, sometimes my schedule's crazy.
SPEAKER_00: I do a lot of counseling and I hurried home one nice past week, and my wife's kind of like, uh, you look like you're getting undressed, like putting on your soft clothes, as we call it.
SPEAKER_00: I have a pair of shorts I've worn since I was in third grade.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and my wife's like, I'm gonna burn those.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, no, you're not.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and a t-shirt that you could read the you could read the Bible through.
SPEAKER_00: It's just threadbare.
SPEAKER_00: And she's like, we're having dinner with these people tonight.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, oh, God, forget.
SPEAKER_00: If it's so easy to forget that, think of how easy it is to forget this.
SPEAKER_00: And so we calibrate ourselves and we remember.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible places such a priority on communion that it gives us instructions how to do it.
SPEAKER_00: It says things like this in the book of 1 Corinthians, Paul says, on the night that Jesus was betrayed, he took bread and after he'd given thanks.
SPEAKER_00: He kind of walks them through that.
SPEAKER_00: And here's why I just reference that because I want you to understand, we skip past this as preachers all the time.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says, on the night Jesus was betrayed.
SPEAKER_00: Communion matters because we have been betrayed, some of us, and we have also betrayed.
SPEAKER_00: We've said one thing and we've done another.
SPEAKER_00: And so there's hope for you today.
SPEAKER_00: You're not coming today to get a religious whipping.
SPEAKER_00: You're coming to be reminded, oh, I'm forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: This has been paid for.
SPEAKER_00: I don't have to kind of look bad, uh, because the wages of sin is not looking and feeling bad.
SPEAKER_00: The wages of sin is death.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, Jesus dies.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't join your small group and baptize your emotions.
SPEAKER_00: He dies on the cross, in your place, and for your sins.
SPEAKER_00: And in that passage in 1 Corinthians, Paul's given instructions.
SPEAKER_00: He said, On the night, Jesus was betrayed.
SPEAKER_00: He took bread and he explains that.
SPEAKER_00: And then he says to these people and to us, uh, by the authority of the Bible, he says, Hey, therefore, because this is such a holy, holy moment, let a man examine himself, let a woman examine herself so they don't drink of the cup and eat of the bread in an unworthy manner.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, you don't fall so asleep to this, it just becomes an empty religious ritual.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus Christ did not leave the sanctity of heaven and come to earth just to give you another religious hoop to jump through.
SPEAKER_00: You realize that, right?
SPEAKER_00: It's very sobering.
SPEAKER_00: And so here's the thing.
SPEAKER_00: Uh we like to, we practice what's called open communion here at Grand Parkway, which means that if you're if you're a Christian, you have a relationship with Christ, uh, you don't have to be a member of our church yet.
SPEAKER_00: If you're here, you're like, hey, we're just checking you out.
SPEAKER_00: That's great.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna be ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: Uh what we do is in just a minute, I'll read a passage because the Bible kind of says, hey, get your head and your heart right.
SPEAKER_00: Don't just come running up to this so you can get home and get and get your stuff ready before kickoff.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: Come to this properly.
SPEAKER_00: And so we always meditate on a section of scripture, and we'll meditate on one in just a minute.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but what we do is that we'll just start worshiping again, and people will just, as you, when you're ready, you just get up.
SPEAKER_00: There's three stations in the front, there's two in the back.
SPEAKER_00: We have regular as well as gluten-free elements, uh, uh, and we'll serve you communion.
SPEAKER_00: But in order to kind of get our head and our heart calibrated, I want us to meditate on this passage from Matthew chapter six.
SPEAKER_00: Four sentences from the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: The disciples had asked Jesus, hey, we're not good at praying.
SPEAKER_00: Show us how we should pray.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says this.
SPEAKER_00: He says, When you pray, pray like this.
SPEAKER_00: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
SPEAKER_00: Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Give us this day, our daily bread.
SPEAKER_00: And forgive us our debts as we as we also have forgiven our debtors, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
SPEAKER_00: That's the Lord's prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we hear it a lot.
SPEAKER_00: Matter of fact, we hear it so much, it almost becomes like the flight attendant on the plane.
SPEAKER_00: White lights lead to red lights, it would indicate an exit, blah, blah, blah.
SPEAKER_00: So I just want to point to a few things in it to kind of just focus our head and our heart as we prepare to receive communion today.
SPEAKER_00: It's the first word, our.
SPEAKER_00: Our.
SPEAKER_00: Not mine, not yours, but our.
SPEAKER_00: Our Father.
SPEAKER_00: The first thing you see is that this is a communal experience.
SPEAKER_00: This is not something for me.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and by something, when I say this, I don't mean communion.
SPEAKER_00: I mean Christianity.
SPEAKER_00: It's not an individual quest where you take a little bit from the Bible, a little bit from pop psychology, and a whole lot from your self-determination.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what Christianity is.
SPEAKER_00: It is a corporate and communal experience.
SPEAKER_00: It's not about me, for me, or by me.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not in this alone, and my life choices do not only affect me.
SPEAKER_00: Second phrase I want to point you to is just that hallowed be your name.
SPEAKER_00: Hallowed be your name.
SPEAKER_00: Hallowed is not a word we we use very often in our culture.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody, when they ask you this morning, how was your weekend?
SPEAKER_00: None of you said hallowed.
SPEAKER_00: It would just be awkward.
SPEAKER_00: They'd be like, uh, okay, rock that back at you.
SPEAKER_00: I got no idea what that meant, but okay.
SPEAKER_00: Hallowed means this: it means greatly respected, honored as holy, set apart.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, when he says, hallowed be your name, God is kind of saying, hey, Jesus, when they said, remember, it teaches how to pray.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the thing.
SPEAKER_00: When you go to pray, you need to get it right about Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You need to get it right about God.
SPEAKER_00: You don't need to be like, hey, I know you're kind of a one of the options on the smorgasboard of world religions.
SPEAKER_00: Uh-uh.
SPEAKER_00: He says, think rightly about me and my name.
SPEAKER_00: You should think about God in ways that you don't think about anybody else.
SPEAKER_00: Because there's an exclusivity to his name and to the faith that you don't find anywhere else.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 138, verse 2, God says, I've exalted above all things my name and my word.
SPEAKER_00: Acts chapter 4, it says there's no name given under heaven whereby which men should be saved except the name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And so you can't get there through any other name.
SPEAKER_00: You can kind of say, Well, the teachings of Christianity offend me, therefore I'm gonna go be a Buddhist.
SPEAKER_00: Well, you can do that, but you won't get to heaven through that.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm not hating, I'm just loving you enough to tell the truth.
SPEAKER_00: One of the things I want you to notice, I love little kids.
SPEAKER_00: When little kids come to our station, one little kid touched the thing and he said, Why is why are you doing this on a table?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I mean a door.
SPEAKER_00: This is the door, right?
SPEAKER_00: And I said, actually, it is a door.
SPEAKER_00: And the reason we serve communion off of doors is because one of the seven I am statements in the book of John, Jesus says, I'm the door that leads to life.
SPEAKER_00: We're just celebrating and reminding ourselves because sometimes when you get put out, you might want to be tempted to kind of back up and look elsewhere.
SPEAKER_00: Look at me.
SPEAKER_00: There is no elsewhere.
SPEAKER_00: Hallowed be your name.
SPEAKER_00: Thirdly, your kingdom come, your will be done.
SPEAKER_00: There's both correlation and connection between these two because the way the kingdom comes is that we do the will of God as we know it.
SPEAKER_00: Let me say that again.
SPEAKER_00: There's connection and correlation between this.
SPEAKER_00: So you can't just say, Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.
SPEAKER_00: You are the medium through which the will of God finds expression.
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean that God's dependent upon you.
SPEAKER_00: It means that God bestows upon humanity dignity by saying, Come be a part of what I'm doing to change the world.
SPEAKER_00: So thy kingdom come, your kingdom come, your will be done.
SPEAKER_00: Today has rich significance because we all, none of us, has always done God's will.
SPEAKER_00: We've fallen short of the standard, we've missed the mark.
SPEAKER_00: Put simply, we've sinned.
SPEAKER_00: And so what you will confess today, here in just a few moments, if you leave your seat and come to any of these stations to receive these elements and remember the body and blood of Jesus, what you are saying is I cannot get there on my own.
SPEAKER_00: I need Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Not just, I needed Jesus when I was 17, I need Jesus even more so now that I'm 54.
SPEAKER_00: My confession as your pastor is that I need Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I never want to outgrow needing Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I have Jesus, he is the Lord of my life.
SPEAKER_00: I need Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Do you hear that?
SPEAKER_00: Never outgrow, never get this so sordid that he's no longer necessary.
SPEAKER_00: First thing I want to draw your attention to, he says, give us this day our daily bread.
SPEAKER_00: This teaches us to trust in, rely on, and enjoy God, not just use him for guidance towards our preferable future.
SPEAKER_00: Later in this same chapter, Jesus will say, Hey, don't worry about tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00: Each day has enough worry of its own.
SPEAKER_00: Don't worry about tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00: Why does Jesus say, give it when you pray, pray this way, give us this day our daily bread?
SPEAKER_00: Because if left to ourselves, we would say, Hey, God, give me today everything I'm gonna need for the next five years, and I'll see you again in five years.
SPEAKER_00: Daily bread means I want to see you and hear from you on a consistent basis.
SPEAKER_00: How about this phrase?
SPEAKER_00: And forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors.
SPEAKER_00: And forgive us of our debts as we have forgiven our debtors.
SPEAKER_00: You find the courage to ask this because you've already practiced that.
SPEAKER_00: Now, when I played football in the seventh grade, eighth grade on into high school, we would meet in the end zone before the game, and the coach would say, All right, pray.
SPEAKER_00: And the captains would all start chanting, Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
SPEAKER_00: We all learned a prayer that we did not understand.
SPEAKER_00: And when we prayed it, we said, Forgive us of our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
SPEAKER_00: As we forgive those who sin against us, like, hey, there's this tight correlation of forgive us as we forgive those who sin against us.
SPEAKER_00: And as I was preparing for today, I was reading, and this jumped off the page at me.
SPEAKER_00: And forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, hey, we're not gonna we're not gonna practice the hypocrisy of coming to you and asking for forgiveness, not having already forgiven the people that have sinned against us.
SPEAKER_00: So there's this beautiful responsibility.
SPEAKER_00: There's power and possibility inherent in this today.
SPEAKER_00: What do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: There is the possibility of you being you you you being forgiven, regardless of what you've done.
SPEAKER_00: There's the possibility of you being forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: And then there's this there's the power in you to forgive anybody that sins against you.
SPEAKER_00: I had to say to someone recently who came to me to ask my forgiveness, and the guy said, I just blatantly sinned against you, and I am so sorry.
SPEAKER_00: Can you find it in your heart to forgive me?
SPEAKER_00: And I said, You know what?
SPEAKER_00: I I I could possibly say no, but when you said, Can you find it in your heart?
SPEAKER_00: It just reminded me what all's in my heart.
SPEAKER_00: And so, yes.
SPEAKER_00: And he goes, What do you mean, what's in your heart?
SPEAKER_00: Oh man, there's all kinds of not good stuff in there.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Don't you pastor a church?
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Shh.
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: Now that doesn't mean I give expression to it.
SPEAKER_00: Like just this week, someone cut me off in traffic.
SPEAKER_00: And then he showed me the heavens that way.
SPEAKER_00: And this went through my mind.
SPEAKER_00: I will drag you out of that thing and beat you half to death right here at this intersection.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not kidding.
SPEAKER_00: In a nanosecond, I went there.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, my chest was hot, and I was just like, I miss the physicality of hitting people and getting hit.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you've ever been hit before, it wakes you up.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, now we're gonna really fight.
SPEAKER_00: And just in a split second, that leapt up out of my heart, and I was just like, I felt all thicked up and everything.
SPEAKER_00: I got ready to go.
SPEAKER_00: And I was just reminded, hey, that you're not that kid anymore.
SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, I can forgive you.
SPEAKER_00: You forgive people when they sin against you because you see their sin through the lens of your own.
SPEAKER_00: And lastly, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
SPEAKER_00: What do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: It sobers how we think about temptation when you acknowledge that the end game is evil.
SPEAKER_00: Temptation is never neutral, it always wants to deliver us to evil.
SPEAKER_00: So let this shape how you think about, respond to, and act towards temptation.
SPEAKER_00: That means men, when a woman kind of looks at you kind of like, hey, don't lie to yourself and be like, oh, the potbellied stallion still got it.
SPEAKER_00: Here's how you think about that.
SPEAKER_00: Look at me.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm talking to you.
SPEAKER_00: If you're visiting today, you're like, this.
SPEAKER_00: Is he talk like this all the time?
SPEAKER_00: Look at me.
SPEAKER_00: Don't, don't, don't, don't consume.
SPEAKER_00: See, you will consume what you can, your depravity is so depraved that you can consume someone's lust, someone's curious lust upon your lust.
SPEAKER_00: Like, oh, I must still have it.
SPEAKER_00: I gotta, I gotta get back on that whole 30.
SPEAKER_00: I'm awesome.
SPEAKER_00: I'm looking good today.
SPEAKER_00: In reality, if you understand what this says and lead us out into temptation, but deliver us from evil, what you really should think is look how committed the devil is to destroying me.
SPEAKER_00: And then you're at the fork of the road and you say, Am I gonna be compliant in my own destruction?
SPEAKER_00: Or are you gonna be able to laugh at yourself and kind of go, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: I have a wife.
SPEAKER_00: I don't need to prove my manhood with other women.
SPEAKER_00: I have a wife.
SPEAKER_00: She's enough for me.
SPEAKER_00: Because temptation is never neutral.
SPEAKER_00: Ever.
SPEAKER_00: So we're just gonna leave that passage up on the screen.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna voice a prayer, and then we're just gonna spend about a minute or so just kind of get in our head and our heart, kind of get a chiropractic adjustment.
SPEAKER_00: Because you're gonna come to this table.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you've ever been to the chiropractor, but when they do that little thing on you, you're like, whoo, my body made some noises I don't think it's supposed to make.
SPEAKER_00: And then you walk off and you're like, and I feel better.
SPEAKER_00: This aligns your soul in ways that few things will.
SPEAKER_00: So let's just pick out a word up there, a phrase that stands out to you and think about it.
SPEAKER_00: Let me pray.
SPEAKER_00: Lord Jesus, we want to do what the Bible says.
SPEAKER_00: We just want to uh we want to remember because we're prone to forget.
SPEAKER_00: We're hardwired to forget.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we we want to forget, God.
SPEAKER_00: So we want to act like there is no God so we can be God.
SPEAKER_00: So we can determine what's right and wrong in our own life.
SPEAKER_00: We can be the masters of our own fate.
SPEAKER_00: Because some of us got wounded as little kids and we took matters into our own hands, and we are never gonna depend on anybody else because they may hurt us the way those people hurt us.
SPEAKER_00: And to that you come and say in the 27th Psalm, though my mother and father forsake me, the Lord will take me up.
SPEAKER_00: You come along and say in the 68th Psalm, the Lord has set lonely the lonely in families.
SPEAKER_00: You have made provision for us in ways that we can stop being so driven.
SPEAKER_00: And we can just receive.
SPEAKER_00: And today, Lord, we've come to remember and to receive, to remember the body and the blood of Jesus and to receive the elements, mindful of you.
SPEAKER_00: Now, Lord, we're gonna just take a moment to kind of calibrate our head and our heart and get ready for this.
SPEAKER_00: So brood over us.
SPEAKER_00: Say anything to us that has our name on it today because we're listening.
SPEAKER_00: Father, we're thankful this morning that self-reflection is not an invitation to self-hatred, it's also not an invitation to self-determination or self-definition.
SPEAKER_00: It's just what the Bible says.
SPEAKER_00: Examine yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Take note of the trends and tendencies in your life so you'll stop repeating the same sins.
SPEAKER_00: Because the body and the blood of Jesus was offered up not only to forgive us of our sins, but to break the power of sin in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: And so, Lord, with all of this, we come to remember this morning.
SPEAKER_00: And we do so in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: And everyone said, Amen.
SPEAKER_00: If you're prepared to help us serve communion, would you move to your stations at this point?
SPEAKER_00: And again, uh, some of you may have arrived late.
SPEAKER_00: Let me just remind you, we practice open communion, which means if you have a relationship with God, you're free to come and receive communion.
SPEAKER_00: What we'll do is we'll just continue in worship.
SPEAKER_00: And when people get ready, they'll stand up and come to one of these stations.
SPEAKER_00: There's three in the front, there's two in the back.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and you come, we'll serve you the elements.
SPEAKER_00: And if we can pray for you, just say, hey, pray for us.
SPEAKER_00: Because we got this going on, and we'd any of us would love to pray for you.
SPEAKER_00: And after you receive the elements, go back to your seat.
SPEAKER_00: You can sit and think, you can worship, you can just enjoy, and then we'll be dismissed when we're done, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Whatever you do, look at me.
SPEAKER_00: Don't stack the cups.
SPEAKER_00: Because some of you neat Nicks, you always come to my station, there's cups, empty cups, and you like to stack them all up.
SPEAKER_00: Christianity is not that neat.
SPEAKER_00: In the first service, I grabbed a stack of cups and I just unstacked them and dropped them.
SPEAKER_00: Five teenagers were like, uh, and I said, These cups are stories.
SPEAKER_00: There was a man here earlier who struggles with such crippling addiction that it's not week to week, it's hour to hour, his sobriety.
SPEAKER_00: And he said with trembling hands, that you understand Jesus Christ died for you.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00: So every cup is a story, and what I hope is that by the if you if you if you come later and you see every one of these doors is covered with cups, you're not alone.
SPEAKER_00: And what makes that possible is that Jesus said to his father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.
SPEAKER_00: What I gotta do, if there's another way, there's not another way.
SPEAKER_00: That's why we say there's an exclusivity to Christianity.
SPEAKER_00: We're not being mean, we're just finding the courage to tell the truth.
SPEAKER_00: Because no one else has died on the cross in your place and for your sins.
SPEAKER_00: And look at me.
SPEAKER_00: His cup is bigger than your cup.
SPEAKER_00: So you don't have to hide today.
SPEAKER_00: Ali Ali and free.
SPEAKER_00: Come out, come out wherever you are.
SPEAKER_00: Let's remember together.
SPEAKER_00: Let me voice a prayer.
SPEAKER_00: God, thanks.
SPEAKER_00: We want to understand you more and trust you more.
SPEAKER_00: For many of us, people that we trusted a long time ago, they burned us.
SPEAKER_00: And so we took matters into our own hands and we said to ourselves, depend on no one.
SPEAKER_00: You got this.
SPEAKER_00: And we will burn ourselves to the ground with that.
SPEAKER_00: And so we want to understand you and know you and trust you and obey you.
SPEAKER_00: So increase our understanding of you today.
SPEAKER_00: So our obedience gets bigger.
SPEAKER_00: We ask for this in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: And everyone said, There's a couple things we want to make you aware of that are taking place here at our church.
SPEAKER_00: And so let's hear uh this week's announcements together.
SPEAKER_02: Here's a look at what's happening at Grand Parkway Baptist Church.
SPEAKER_02: Men's breakfast is this Tuesday, September 11th, at 6 a.m.
SPEAKER_02: in the warehouse.
SPEAKER_02: We'll eat breakfast tacos, listen to biblical teaching, and discuss it with other men.
SPEAKER_02: You'll be out the door by 7 a.m.
SPEAKER_02: so you can get to work.
SPEAKER_02: Our midweek studies kick off this week with women's studies on Tuesday morning and adults, youth, and children on Wednesday night.
SPEAKER_02: Next Sunday, September 16th, our community groups begin.
SPEAKER_02: This is where we engage in spiritual dialogue and reflect on biblical truth with others.
SPEAKER_02: Childcare is provided.
SPEAKER_02: Just ask your community group leader for more details.
SPEAKER_02: At the conclusion of today's service, head back to the Fellowship Hall for Group Connect, where you can meet all of our community group leaders.
SPEAKER_02: Starting point is next Sunday at 11.30 a.m.
SPEAKER_02: This is where you can hear the history and mission of our church and learn why church membership matters.
SPEAKER_02: As always, for more information, check out our website at grandparkway.org.
SPEAKER_00: It's about community groups.
SPEAKER_00: People have the red shirts on that say find your people.
SPEAKER_00: We have small groups that meet all over our city, different ages, different groups.
SPEAKER_00: And so if you're curious about, hey, we'd like to maybe visit one of those, it's a great opportunity.
SPEAKER_00: There's no obligation.
SPEAKER_00: You can just kind of explore and look for the people that you think.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, I think we could click with these folks.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, there's some snacks back there.
SPEAKER_00: So if anything, you can start your noshing early before the game kicks off.
SPEAKER_00: Amen?
SPEAKER_00: Uh buzz the tower back there before you head out of here, Maverick, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Uh next week we'll be back in John chapter 8.
SPEAKER_00: I'll be preaching, unfortunately.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, so we'll see if I remember how to do this, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Uh, one last bit of business I want to do is uh today is Don Mitten's last Sunday with us.
SPEAKER_00: Don is retiring.
SPEAKER_00: He came here at the age of 62.
SPEAKER_00: He was very comfortable, and he was in a place that loved him that he loved, but he felt God stir in his heart to move from Florida and come here.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, I want to work till I'm 66.
SPEAKER_00: He turns 66 next month.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and so he's been a man of his word the whole time he's been here.
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm gonna ask Don if he would to come and speak a benediction over us.
SPEAKER_00: And while Don's coming, uh, we took up a love offering because we want to honor those that have honored us by their presence.
SPEAKER_00: And so, Don, here is a uh uh token of our generosity and our really our appreciation for your generosity.
SPEAKER_00: I just want to say this we are better because you've been with us these little over three years, and we will never forget you.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
SPEAKER_01: That makes it hard to say you're leaving.
SPEAKER_01: Um before I I read a scripture to you, I I do want to say thank you to uh we did come here three years ago, and uh I think I've served in six or seven different churches before here, and the thing I would uh say to you is never have we met a more friendly, accepting, kind group of people.
SPEAKER_01: And I have some background to look and say that.
SPEAKER_01: Um I feel like we've been blessed in where we've served, but uh what a great way and a great finish to a place to serve.
SPEAKER_01: And uh the thing I would say, and I said this to our staff this week, is that protect what you have.
SPEAKER_01: Um because I've been in a lot of churches and know a lot of people who've served.
SPEAKER_01: Um Grand Parkway has a special place.
SPEAKER_01: And uh not all churches are special places, sometimes they can be rough.
SPEAKER_01: And uh I would just say that you need to protect that, work at praying for Neil and the staff, pray that God's Spirit would always be here, and that would be what is leading in everything that happens.
SPEAKER_01: And um, I know they covet, I know as a staff member, I always covet people praying for us.
SPEAKER_01: So I would just encourage you to do that.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, but protect what you have and love this church and be a part of it and serve well.
SPEAKER_01: Um it's funny, this morning um I had picked out a passage of scripture to read to you, um, and it's still out of that passage, just a different verse.
SPEAKER_01: Um I would encourage you this afternoon, sometimes, uh, if you would, the first about 15 verses of uh the chapter one of Philippians is about Paul's prayer for the people there.
SPEAKER_01: And so I'm not gonna read all that to you because I wouldn't do that well uh at this point, uh, but I'm gonna read one verse.
SPEAKER_01: Um it says, and this is put your hands out, this is my blessing to you.
SPEAKER_01: May you always be filled with the fruit of your salvation, the righteous character produced in your life by Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: For this will bring you much glory and praise to God.
SPEAKER_01: Go and give praise and glory to God.