SPEAKER_00: This podcast is the Ministry of Grand Parkway Baptist Church.
SPEAKER_00: For more information on our church, please visit Grandparkway.org.
SPEAKER_00: You can have a seat if you have a Bible.
SPEAKER_00: I invite you to take it and open it up to 1 Corinthians chapter 11.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to read a couple of passages and I want to do a shorter uh sermon because if you're our guest today, let me just tell you what you see.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you arrive late.
SPEAKER_00: Today is communion at Grand Parkway.
SPEAKER_00: And uh we we do communion, we practice open communion, which means if you're a Christian, if you have a relationship with Christ, uh you're welcome to receive communion uh uh with us today.
SPEAKER_00: Uh some of you are like, hey, we just came for the first time.
SPEAKER_00: That's okay.
SPEAKER_00: You're more than welcome.
SPEAKER_00: I'll do a brief homily uh and then we'll have some time where we'll just kind of examine ourselves, and then there's three stations here, and there's two in the back corners, and they'll be manned by staff, pastors and elders and their wives.
SPEAKER_00: And we'll the way we do it is in the context of worship, we'll just keep the band will come back and we'll just be worshiping.
SPEAKER_00: And people come as families, as friends, and we serve you communion, and then you can go back to your seat and you can worship and reflect and pray or whatever, and then we'll conclude our service, okay?
SPEAKER_00: But the Bible gives some gives us some instructions uh around how to do this.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to read that.
SPEAKER_00: 1 Corinthians chapter 11, verse 23.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, For I receive for the Lord what I also deliver to you.
SPEAKER_00: That the Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and he said, This is my body which is for you.
SPEAKER_00: Do this in remembrance of me.
SPEAKER_00: In the same way also he took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood.
SPEAKER_00: Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.
SPEAKER_00: For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to stop right there.
SPEAKER_00: We'll pick up in just a minute, but I want to point out just a few things.
SPEAKER_00: As a pastor, I want to I don't want to get on autopilot when it comes to communion.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a break from preaching.
SPEAKER_00: It's not, oh, I don't have to study as much this week.
SPEAKER_00: No, you you should even, you you should probably study more when because one of the great sins of the American church is familiarity.
SPEAKER_00: We look at something like this and we think, I got it, I kind of know how that goes, a little cracker, a little juice, and we miss the whole thing.
SPEAKER_00: And so I want to just uh I want to just point out a few phrases from the text for us to think about, to orient our minds towards receiving communion today.
SPEAKER_00: And the first one is uh about in verse 23 there, when it says, excuse me, verse 24, it says, and and and on the night he was betrayed, he took bread, and when he had given thanks.
SPEAKER_00: And it's that phrase, and when he had given thanks, in the context of betrayal and abandonment and death, Jesus gives thanks.
SPEAKER_00: He knows what's coming.
SPEAKER_00: He's already been in the garden.
SPEAKER_00: He's he's gonna be in and he's like, hey, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.
SPEAKER_00: Uh but it doesn't.
SPEAKER_00: And so he knows what's coming.
SPEAKER_00: He's fully aware uh of the reality that awaits him.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, in that context, he gives thanks.
SPEAKER_00: It reminds me of what I saw on the TV this past week about the tornadoes that devastated Moore, Oklahoma.
SPEAKER_00: If you've never been in a tornado, what it smells like, it smells like wet pine.
SPEAKER_00: And as a kid, a tornado hit our farm, and it didn't, when it hits a house, it just like it's like it explodes and it splinters the wood, and it smells like wet pine.
SPEAKER_00: That's what tuberflops are made out of, and and and dank insulation.
SPEAKER_00: It's a very pungent smell.
SPEAKER_00: You'll never get over it.
SPEAKER_00: But it in the midst, one thing that struck me is they showed people that their schools and their homes are devastated.
SPEAKER_00: All of them were thankful.
SPEAKER_00: There was the video of the one guy, his family got in the storm shelter, and it sounds like a freight train.
SPEAKER_00: That's exactly what it sounds like.
SPEAKER_00: It's just whirling, and he opens the storm cellar and he's videoing, and the mom's talking to the kids, and he's videoing, and he looks over, and there's where his house used to be.
SPEAKER_00: It's just a concrete slab.
SPEAKER_00: And he just says spontaneously, when he rehearsed, he just says, The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.
SPEAKER_00: And then they go down the news cameras, go to the next house, and everyone's thankful.
SPEAKER_00: They've lost everything, and they're saying, Oh, we just want to thank God because blah, blah, blah, and you're like, hello, what's going on here?
SPEAKER_00: It's what the Bible says in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5.
SPEAKER_00: He says, in everything give thanks.
SPEAKER_00: For this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
SPEAKER_00: Now, be aware of the prepositions when you read the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't say for everything.
SPEAKER_00: He says in everything.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of people try to be hyper-spiritual when something horrible happens and go, I thank God for this.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what the Bible that that that kind of pseudo-spirituality is not what the Bible teaches.
SPEAKER_00: He says, in the context.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus models what the Bible teaches, and in the context of something that wasn't very enjoyable, he gives thanks.
SPEAKER_00: I just wonder what you would, when you prepare to come to the table this morning, what you are aware that you're thankful for.
SPEAKER_00: My favorite picture from this past week, if you could use a word over a tragedy like what happened in Moore, Oklahoma, was one home was just a pile of debris and down there buried beneath the two by fours, but you can make it out with a little sign that simply said, Life is about more than things.
SPEAKER_00: And they asked the lady, Are you going to rebuild?
SPEAKER_00: And she said, Of course.
SPEAKER_00: This is my town.
SPEAKER_00: See, it's possible in the midst of a horribly devastating situation to give thanks.
SPEAKER_00: Second phrase that jumps off the page is it Jesus, Paul quotes what Jesus said.
SPEAKER_00: He says, This is my body, which is for you.
SPEAKER_00: This is my body, which is for you.
SPEAKER_00: I read this past week, John Stott was a he's a writer, thinker, theologian, pastor from England, and he he said this he says, The essence of sin is man substituting himself for God.
SPEAKER_00: Well, the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man.
SPEAKER_00: Man asserts himself against God and puts himself where only God deserves to be.
SPEAKER_00: And God sacrifices himself for man and puts himself where only man deserves to be.
SPEAKER_00: That's the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Man asserts himself in the place of God, and God sacrifices himself in the place of man.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Jesus was talking about when he says, This is my body, which is for you.
SPEAKER_00: And the question we have to ask is, what is our response to this?
SPEAKER_00: Well, our response is to in turn say the same thing back to God.
SPEAKER_00: This is my body, which is for you.
SPEAKER_00: We hear all the time in our day and age, what's my body?
SPEAKER_00: I can do what I want.
SPEAKER_00: Not if you're a believer, not if you're a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says, Don't you know you were bought with a price, therefore glorify God with your body.
SPEAKER_00: First Peter tells us you are not redeemed from this empty way of life, handed down from your forefathers with perishable things like silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like a lamb without blemish or spot.
SPEAKER_00: You look in Revelation 5, and there's a picture around the throne room of God, and they're singing to Jesus, this lamb who was slain.
SPEAKER_00: Worthy are you to open the scroll, because with your blood you purchased men for God.
SPEAKER_00: You purpose, you purchased people for God from every tribe and nation and tongue.
SPEAKER_00: People often ask me, How did your church get so diverse?
SPEAKER_00: This church looks like heaven's gonna look.
SPEAKER_00: Every nation, every tribe, every tongue, every kindred, every people.
SPEAKER_00: And yet you read in Romans and Paul, after he finishes Romans 11, uh, where he has this great, this great kind of a Christological passage about how God, who's ever given to God that God should repay him for from him and through him and to him are all things, to him be the glory forever.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And he starts chapter 12, verse 1, and says, Therefore, in view of God's mercies, in view of how big God is, and maybe that's it for some of you today, you just need to be reminded, have your breath taken away by how expansively, uh all-consumingly huge God is, and yet how available he's made himself.
SPEAKER_00: He says, in view of God's mercies, the problem with most of us is that we don't have a robust enough theology of God, an understanding of God.
SPEAKER_00: We have a big self-image and a little bitty God image.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe you could just say, I want to have a bigger view of God, and maybe a smaller view of myself.
SPEAKER_00: But because otherwise a lot of the Bible doesn't make sense.
SPEAKER_00: If you're big and God's small, this is probably not going to be for you.
SPEAKER_00: But if you feel small today and your God is big, you're in a great place.
SPEAKER_00: Because Paul says, therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercies, in view of the fact that God owes us nothing and yet gives us everything.
SPEAKER_00: I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing unto God, because this is your reasonable act of worship.
SPEAKER_00: So what do you say, and what do you say in Neil?
SPEAKER_00: What more importantly, what the Bible is saying when Jesus says, and he's celebrating Passover with his disciples, when he kind of institutes the new covenant and says, This cup is the new covenant in my blood.
SPEAKER_00: He said, when he says, This is my body, which is for you, our response to back to that, that we understand the ramifications of that is that we say, This is my body, which is for you.
SPEAKER_00: Which that sounds all heady and spiritual, and you're like, Yeah, yeah, talk to them teenagers.
SPEAKER_00: It's you know, their body belongs to God.
SPEAKER_00: Let me talk to you men who won't go to the doctor.
SPEAKER_00: Your body belongs to God too.
SPEAKER_00: Your wife's nudging you, isn't she?
SPEAKER_00: Because my wife reminded me the other day, hey, you're getting close to 50.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, listen, it ain't no crime to whack our surly bartender.
SPEAKER_00: What are you running your mouth about here, woman?
SPEAKER_00: She said, Well, I want you to know there's certain procedures men need to get when they turn 50.
SPEAKER_00: I looked at her like, I ain't got no idea what you're talking about.
SPEAKER_00: And she goes, Well, we'll be talking about that.
SPEAKER_00: And the thought went through my mind because I knew I was going to stand here and say, by the way, when Jesus says this is my body that is for you, he wasn't just making a statement.
SPEAKER_00: He was making a claim on your body.
SPEAKER_00: And making a claim on my body.
SPEAKER_00: I can't say, well, I just don't like going to the doctor.
SPEAKER_00: There's many a man that die of very preventable things because they were stubborn.
SPEAKER_00: Don't be stubborn.
SPEAKER_00: You didn't expect to hear that in a communion homily, did you?
SPEAKER_00: Men and mother self, go to the doctor.
SPEAKER_00: It's not your body.
SPEAKER_00: All through the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Just over and over it says, hey, when you get married, your body belongs to your ladies, your body belongs to your husband, and men, your body belongs to your wife.
SPEAKER_00: Men are like, all right, now talk about that song.
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: It's just not your body.
SPEAKER_00: Third thing Jesus says is, do this in remembrance of me.
SPEAKER_00: Do this in remembrance of me.
SPEAKER_00: Now why would he say that?
SPEAKER_00: Because we have an infinite capacity to make everything about us.
SPEAKER_00: We have this innate ability to take whatever God says and flip it to where, oh, it's a statement of my worth, not his.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, no, he says, do this in remembrance of me.
SPEAKER_00: Keep your hands off of this.
SPEAKER_00: Drill down and think about this.
SPEAKER_00: And when you do, you'll remember a couple things.
SPEAKER_00: A couple things will become obvious when you think about Jesus and this, that he, his body and his blood.
SPEAKER_00: He offered up his body and he shed his blood because he had to die.
SPEAKER_00: You realize a couple things.
SPEAKER_00: And I'll close with them this morning.
SPEAKER_00: You realize, first of all, that not only did Jesus die, but you have to die as well.
SPEAKER_00: John 12, Jesus says, unless a kernel of weight falls to the ground and dies, it remains alone.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you are well on your way if you're not careful to be in 75 and wrinkled and lonely, sitting in a rocking chair, having lived a life of no consequence.
SPEAKER_00: Not because you didn't go to church.
SPEAKER_00: You went to church a lot.
SPEAKER_00: And some of you are kind of got this angst in you, like, hey, I don't have this all figured out.
SPEAKER_00: As a matter of fact, the older I get, the less real this feels to me.
SPEAKER_00: Because you haven't fallen to the ground and died.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains alone.
SPEAKER_00: But if it dies, it produces many seeds.
SPEAKER_00: My wife and I, man, this communion station right here, and I probably should warn you.
SPEAKER_00: I try to have a meditating thought coming into communion every time we serve communion.
SPEAKER_00: And my meditating thought today, and if you come to my station, I will look you in the eye and say to you, and you receive these elements today, be reminded that you're not always going to get your way.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane pleaded with his father and said, If it be possible, let this cup pass from me, but nevertheless, not my will, but your will be done.
SPEAKER_00: He did not get his way.
SPEAKER_00: And I will smile and say to you, as your pastor who loves you, it's a good thing that you don't get your way.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you are like, uh, we'll be going to the other stations.
SPEAKER_00: That's fine.
SPEAKER_00: Matter of fact, I'll press it even harder, and I'll tell you this, because I told somebody this morning in the first row, they're like, Oh, what you talking about, Willis?
SPEAKER_00: In the moment you're most aware that you're not getting your way is the most Christ-like emotion you'll have that day.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus knows what it feels like to not get his way.
SPEAKER_00: See, the American church has kind of sold you a bill of goods that if you love Jesus, you're always going to get your way.
SPEAKER_00: No, you're not.
SPEAKER_00: If you think you are, get married.
SPEAKER_00: You don't always get your way.
SPEAKER_00: And it's a good thing.
SPEAKER_00: It's good that I don't always get my way.
SPEAKER_00: Now, in the moment when I realize I'm not getting my way, it don't feel good.
SPEAKER_00: Because my wife has this one eyebrow and it kind of goes up like, ta now.
SPEAKER_00: Did I tell you I used to be on the debate team in college?
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes I think, boy, I could just slice up your bad logic right here.
SPEAKER_00: And I even take a breath to say some stuff and nothing comes out.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: Alrighty.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's what we're gonna do.
SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
SPEAKER_00: I have to die.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a one-time thing.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's a daily.
SPEAKER_00: I gotta die.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said, if anyone wants to be my disciple, let him deny himself.
SPEAKER_00: Take up his cross and follow me.
SPEAKER_00: It's not enough just to deny yourself.
SPEAKER_00: You need to have your cross, the means by which you put self to death on a daily basis.
SPEAKER_00: Because that rascal can get up and rise up from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: You can kill him on Monday and wake up Tuesday and he's there going, Hello.
SPEAKER_00: Second thing you realize is that there's a rest for the people of God.
SPEAKER_00: There's a rest.
SPEAKER_00: Hebrews 4 talks about there's a there's a Sabbath rest.
SPEAKER_00: There's this, and it's not this like a nap.
SPEAKER_00: It's a position that is ours because we've kind of entered in, we've ceased from all our religious duties, all our checking the knots in our suit of fig leaves to make sure no one realizes that we're kind of no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: There's a rest.
SPEAKER_00: There's a uh in a world where everyone takes a shower, there's a hot bath awaiting you.
SPEAKER_00: When's the last time you took a hot bath?
SPEAKER_00: You men are looking at me like, that's creepy.
SPEAKER_00: The women are kind of like, oh, I got some candles.
SPEAKER_00: Your wives have got candles that they break out and surround the bathtub and smelly stuff they put in there.
SPEAKER_00: And they just get in there and just turn into a prune.
SPEAKER_00: And the Bible says there's a rest.
SPEAKER_00: You say, What do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: I was tangibly reminded of this because for whatever reason, the high school my daughter goes to across the street, all the teachers waited until the last two weeks of school to make all these big projects to group projects, okay?
SPEAKER_00: And usually my daughter's the overachiever who's in there, and I'm looking at all the other kids like, listen, I got my eye on you, you little lazy one.
SPEAKER_00: But these kids are like in pre-AP classes and they're gonna like fix the world.
SPEAKER_00: And so at my house, and I said, Who we got here?
SPEAKER_00: One of them said, Well, you got three Hindus, a liberal Catholic, the son of a Chinese Baptist pastor, and you got your preacher's kid.
SPEAKER_00: And then my nine-year-old, who was a voyeur on the outside watching the whole thing.
SPEAKER_00: And one of those little girls said to Madison, Madison, your little sister is funny.
SPEAKER_00: That was like crack to our nine-year-old.
SPEAKER_00: She was just like, Oh, you think that's funny?
SPEAKER_00: I got a lot more than that.
SPEAKER_00: And so we're trying to keep her at bay.
SPEAKER_00: And and and and then Monday night they worked on it.
SPEAKER_00: By the way, it is a because my kids think I just kind of hover around waiting for them to need something, and then I just go get it.
SPEAKER_00: Madison texts me on Monday, oh Dad, I need a sheet of plywood.
SPEAKER_00: What for for my school project?
SPEAKER_00: And I need it right now.
SPEAKER_00: Like I need it.
SPEAKER_00: She said, I need it as big as six carpet squares at the church.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, what?
SPEAKER_00: Is that what you do when I'm preaching?
SPEAKER_00: Just look at the carpet.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, about that big.
SPEAKER_00: So I run to Home Depot and get it.
SPEAKER_00: And come back and well, we need some air-dry clay.
SPEAKER_00: They're making uh like a the world out of clay, all the continents out of clay and the ocean.
SPEAKER_00: They made the Panama Canal, they got Mount Everest, all this stuff.
SPEAKER_00: They work on it Monday night, Tuesday night, Wednesday, they work on it Thursday at our house.
SPEAKER_00: This is at my house, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: It is like a high, and 15-year-old girls smell funny.
SPEAKER_00: There's like this collision of perfume, and it's just kind of like, oh, that is like rank.
SPEAKER_00: That's like going to the mall and walking in that perfume, kind of like, ha! How about y'all go like like fragrance-free for one day?
SPEAKER_00: But no, and and they eat like pigs.
SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, my wife's like, you know, Paula Dean, and she's over there kind of every day.
SPEAKER_00: Here's chocolate chip cookies, and you know, when pigs you ever heard pigs eat?
SPEAKER_00: That's what it's like.
SPEAKER_00: They're just shoveling stuff in, and I'm like, you girls ain't no bigger than a knick knack.
SPEAKER_00: What are y'all doing?
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I think some of these girls got a curly tail in their pants.
SPEAKER_00: My wife is like said to me, Shut up and go to your room.
SPEAKER_00: I'm 48 years old.
SPEAKER_00: You can't tell me to go to my room.
SPEAKER_00: I gotta stand in here and see what this is all about.
SPEAKER_00: And then we gotta feed them.
SPEAKER_00: They stay there today.
SPEAKER_00: Thursday night, about 9.15, our freshman comes out and goes, Dad, can everybody spend the night?
SPEAKER_00: Because I know you're not this way, but my house is like my castle.
SPEAKER_00: I got a moat around it and a drum bridge.
SPEAKER_00: And when I go across, a drum bridge comes up.
SPEAKER_00: I want to walk around in a holy t-shirt.
SPEAKER_00: I want to walk around my shirt off.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna go, hey, five old B need this coffee.
SPEAKER_00: Where's my wife?
SPEAKER_00: But I got a house full of 15-year-old girls running everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: And and and and so now I said, What do you mean spending that?
SPEAKER_00: Well, we're gonna step away, we're really working on a project, and we gotta do some studying, and I just looked at my mom and I was like, uh, because at this point I was so just like, I need my life back.
SPEAKER_00: And there's my wife over there like the prom queen.
SPEAKER_00: You girls need anything else?
SPEAKER_00: I am resenting my wife that she's not as frustrated as me.
SPEAKER_00: That's horrible.
SPEAKER_00: It's I was just like, get out of my house.
SPEAKER_00: I want my house back.
SPEAKER_00: I haven't seen my TV in four days.
SPEAKER_00: And I looked over there, and then then the Holy Spirit's like, hey, what's your wife know that you don't know?
SPEAKER_00: Really?
SPEAKER_00: I don't.
SPEAKER_00: There's a rest.
SPEAKER_00: It's not like taking a nap, it's a it's a it's a position in life.
SPEAKER_00: There's a rest for the people of God.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Jesus says.
SPEAKER_00: That's what He He makes available in this.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Do this in remembrance of me.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, this time of year where weddings and graduations and projects are all coming due, and somebody's cranking the flywheel, and it's going faster and faster and faster.
SPEAKER_00: There's a rest.
SPEAKER_00: And oh, by the way, they when they spent the night, they I don't get this.
SPEAKER_00: You gotta be 15 and a girl, I guess.
SPEAKER_00: They went home and got clothes to come back and spend the night.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, as they're going out the door, why don't you just stay home when you go home?
SPEAKER_00: You ain't gotta come back, it's a school night.
SPEAKER_00: Remember a long time ago when you didn't spend the night on a school night?
SPEAKER_00: Nobody does that.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, they do, because they got a project.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna show up across the street over there with an axe and a clown mask.
SPEAKER_00: Who assigned the project?
SPEAKER_00: But Thursday night, the Holy Spirit just said, Hey, by the way, what are you gonna do such a twist about?
SPEAKER_00: Just rest.
SPEAKER_00: Look at your wife, it doesn't bother her.
SPEAKER_00: That's because she's crazy.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing bothers her.
SPEAKER_00: Why does it bother you?
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: It just does.
SPEAKER_00: There's a rest.
SPEAKER_00: Last thing I would say too, the Bible says to you is that remember this your sins are not just forgiven, but they're forgotten.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to me.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna mess with some of you right here.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you, when anytime people talk about sands in your mind, you go to your pet sand, the one you keep repeating over and over and over.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you think there's a closet that God has, and when you start getting a little cocky, he puts his hand on the doorknob and says, You want me to open this?
SPEAKER_00: We both know it's in here.
SPEAKER_00: It's where I put all the sins I forgave you for.
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like when you tell your kids to go clean the room.
SPEAKER_00: They come out two minutes later, it's clean.
SPEAKER_00: If I open your closet, am I gonna get smothered?
SPEAKER_00: You think God's got his hand on the doorknob?
SPEAKER_00: He's like, we both know it's in here.
SPEAKER_00: You want me to open this?
SPEAKER_00: Alright, you better get being moral.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what you don't know.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says in Micah chapter 7, Micah.
SPEAKER_00: That's back in the minor prophet section of the Old Testament where homeschoolers get names for their kids.
SPEAKER_00: Come on, Habakkuk, we're going to Chick-fil-A.
SPEAKER_00: Micah.
SPEAKER_00: You hadn't read Micah lately.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what the Bible says in Micah chapter seven.
SPEAKER_00: Check me and see if it's in there.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 18 to verse 20.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what he says.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Of God, he will tread upon our iniquities.
SPEAKER_00: That means he walks on them.
SPEAKER_00: And then it says this he will cast them into the sea.
SPEAKER_00: You're not just forgiven, you're forgotten.
SPEAKER_00: The sea is where they can lose the Titanic.
SPEAKER_00: You know, they lost the Titanic for like years, they couldn't find it.
SPEAKER_00: Hello.
SPEAKER_00: And you act like God's got his hand on the door, kind of going, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Don't you get out of line because I'll yank this door open.
SPEAKER_00: We both know what's in there.
SPEAKER_00: God knows what's in there.
SPEAKER_00: You don't.
SPEAKER_00: God knows there's nothing in there.
SPEAKER_00: Because He is casted into the sea.
SPEAKER_00: When you read the Bible, look at the little words.
SPEAKER_00: You see, God He doesn't waste a word.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't say tossed or He kicked.
SPEAKER_00: It says He cast.
SPEAKER_00: Unless you've gone fishing with a real fisherman, you don't understand casting.
SPEAKER_00: When I was a kid, my dad would take us fishing, and me and my brother.
SPEAKER_00: Brothers would tie on to the to the riding reel the heaviest thing in the tackle box because it would go the furthest.
SPEAKER_00: And we just had contests who could throw it the furthest.
SPEAKER_00: Until I was about in the 11th grade and I went fishing with a man who was a real fisherman.
SPEAKER_00: And he cast with his left hand.
SPEAKER_00: He was right-handed.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Why'd he cast with your left hand?
SPEAKER_00: He said, As soon as the bait hits the water, son, you gotta start working the bait.
SPEAKER_00: And he would say, Set stop over there, right on it.
SPEAKER_00: See that thing?
SPEAKER_00: He would cast underhand, under the limbs of a tree.
SPEAKER_00: I was like, Shazam.
SPEAKER_00: It was unbelievable.
SPEAKER_00: I came home and I repented of throwing my ride and reel.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because to cast implies intentionality.
SPEAKER_00: I want this to go to a certain place and yield a certain result.
SPEAKER_00: I fished with that man half a day.
SPEAKER_00: He caught eight fish.
SPEAKER_00: I caught a sunburn.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I would throw mine like a big rainbow and when it hit like and he'll throw his and you wouldn't even hear it.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because cast implies intentionality.
SPEAKER_00: When God cast your sins into the sea, he had something in mind.
SPEAKER_00: So when he says, do this and remember to me, you need to remember that this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Let me read the rest of the passage and we're gonna do what it says.
SPEAKER_00: If you're our guest today, we love the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Every time somebody preaches, we're gonna preach the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: We're preaching through the book of Romans.
SPEAKER_00: We took a hit the pause button.
SPEAKER_00: This summer we're gonna do a series on the parables of Jesus, and in the fall, we'll do a couple topical series.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna talk about the gospel and marriage, things like that, and then we'll pick right back up in the book of Romans.
SPEAKER_00: Here's why we love the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Because it's so practical, and it doesn't just tell us what to do, it tells us how to do it.
SPEAKER_00: This is no exception.
SPEAKER_00: It picks up in verse 27 of 1 Corinthians 11.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever therefore eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and the blood of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Let a person examine himself then, and so eat of the bread and drink the cup, for anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.
SPEAKER_00: That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.
SPEAKER_00: But if we judge ourselves truly, translation, if we stop being religious posers who can't even tell the truth about ourselves, if we stop misrepresenting ourselves, if we stop practicing impression management, if we stop caring more about what people think than what God thinks.
SPEAKER_00: If we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged.
SPEAKER_00: But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to hear in that, and I'll be quiet.
SPEAKER_00: Or as I like to say, I'll shut up.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to hear in that God's not about going around condemning you.
SPEAKER_00: He says, examine yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Shoot straight with yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Then you won't live in fear that you're gonna be found out one day.
SPEAKER_00: Be the first person to find yourself out.
SPEAKER_00: That's why he says, examine yourself.
SPEAKER_00: So what we're gonna do is I'm just gonna pray.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna spend just a few moments just examining ourselves before we come to the table.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_00: Holy Spirit, we want to do what the psalmist said in the 139th Psalm when he said, Search me, O God, know my heart, try me, Lord, and know my anxious thoughts and see if there be any hurtful way in me, and then lead me in the everlasting way.
SPEAKER_00: We've come to ask you to do that, to search us and to try us.
SPEAKER_00: We want to make us fearless and searching moral inventory of our life.
SPEAKER_00: We want to open up the closets of our lives that we don't talk about to anybody.
SPEAKER_00: And we want to deal with what we find there because the Bible tells us that not only do you forgive us, but you forget about it.
SPEAKER_00: We've got to stop relating to you out of all our past sins.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible tells us in the 103rd Psalm that you've separated our sins as far as the East is from the West.
SPEAKER_00: That's how far you've removed our transgressions from us.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, what kind of lives could we live, and what kind of joy could we exhibit if we really, really believe that.
SPEAKER_00: And so, Lord, we want to examine ourselves so we don't come to the movie without the glasses on.
SPEAKER_00: We don't see the bread and the cup and all its dimensions.
SPEAKER_00: I appreciate your patience.
SPEAKER_00: If you would stand to your feet, let me speak a blessing over you, and we'll be dismissed.
SPEAKER_00: Hold your hands out.
SPEAKER_00: You are a forgiven people.
SPEAKER_00: And not only that, that which you needed to be forgiven for has been forgotten.
SPEAKER_00: Depart and do likewise.
SPEAKER_00: Life is much more enjoyable when you view it the way God does.
SPEAKER_00: In the name of the Father, and the Son, the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Bless you.
SPEAKER_00: You're dismissed.