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2 Timothy 2:1-13 | Vision: Called to Communion

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Listen to this week’s sermon, Vision: Called into Communion preached by Rev. Benjamin Kandt from 2 Timothy 2:1-13.

Rev. Benjamin Kandt:

Hello everyone. This is Pastor Benjamin. You're listening to Sermon Audio from New City, Orlando. At New City, we long to see our Father answer the Lord's Prayer. For more resources, visit our website at Newcity Orlando.com.

Raquel West:

Please pray this prayer of illumination with me. Guide us, O God, by your word and spirit, that in your light we may see light, in your truth find freedom, and in your will discover your peace through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Today's scripture reading comes from 2 Timothy 2. You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses and trust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him. An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. It is the hardworking farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops. Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in every way, in everything. Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel for which I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal. But the word of God is not bound. Therefore, I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. The saying is trustworthy, for if we have died with him, we will also live with him. If we endure, we will also reign with him. If we deny him, he also will deny us. If we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself. This is God's word. You may be seated.

Rev. Benjamin Kandt:

Well, happy new year, everyone. And so you'll see behind me that once we go from the vision series, actually the last week of January, first two weeks of February will be a series called Winter Wisdom. And then we will kick off a series through the parables that will bring us all the way through the spring until we get to summer in the Psalms. All right. So you get an idea. This is kind of a where we are, where we're going, and that's a ministry calendar behind you, so you have an idea for that. Now, not only our congregational space, but our communities and circles kick back off in mid-January. And so if you want to find out more about that, you can again fill out a connect card or go to the connect table in the back, and they can help you get connected as well. The first third of this sermon is going to be recapping 2025, in a way. Things you've already seen, already heard. And so, in order to do that, I just want to point out, I preached this very same passage this Sunday last year. And the reason for that is because last year we started by saying, What is our biblical, robust, simple, compelling, and reproducible definition of a disciple? And we said, a disciple, as you'll see behind me, is united to Jesus in communion with God, community with one another, and co-mission for the world. That was last January's vision series. Then in August, we doubled down on, okay, so if that's a definition of a disciple, what does fruitfulness look like for New City? You know, every organization has to ask and answer the questions, are we succeeding? Are we doing what we're trying to do? Are we, and if so, how? And what's our plan for it? And so we talked in August about our vision, our call to fruitfulness. And so we took that definition and we turned it into not just disciple-defined, but a disciple-defined diagram, which you'll also see behind me. And so you'll you'll notice here, this was this was really what we talked about. And kids, if you will, I know it's family worship Sunday, draw this. Come show me afterward. I'd be really pleased. Adults, you can too. I'd be happy about that. Fine. Um, so the disciple-defined diagram looks like this. We start with our union with Christ by faith alone. And from that center flows out everything else in the Christian life. So, in order to draw on our union with Christ, we practice communion with Him through receiving from Him and responding to Him ongoingly, continually in all of life. That's union and communion with God. Now, that is the heart, the power source, the hub, if you will, of our community with one another. Our community with one another, where we are known and loved and we know and love, is sustained by our communion with God. And our communion with God is kind of displaced outward through the structure of our community with one another. And then finally, if this is a wheel, the rubber meets the road in our co-mission for the world, where we move towards the world through our work and our witness. Through our work, not just what we get compensated for, but our contribution to the world. Not only that, but also our witness, how we bear witness to Jesus in all of life, our who we are, our thoughts, our words, our deeds, those kind of things. Okay, so that is disciple-defined diagram. Now, with that, there is a quote I want to read from a guy named Neil Cole, because this this matters to us. This is what he says. Ultimately, each church will be evaluated by only one thing. It's disciples. Your church is only as good as her disciples. It doesn't matter how good your praise, preaching, programs, or property are. If your disciples are passive, needy, consumerist, and not moving in the direction of radical obedience, your church is not good. Full stop. I believe that. I sincerely believe that. And it's one of the reasons why it's a joy to pastor New City is because I do believe that we are moving in the direction of radical obedience. I believe that that's true of New City, and I'm thankful for that. But it's not only that we would deepen as disciples, but that we would see not yet disciples drawn into this life that we have together in Christ. Okay, and so the second part of this really is um we said our vision, our mission is to call for him and send disciple makers. What that means is that our desire, our aim, what we're after is you becoming the kind of people who can invite a not yet disciple through your work and witness into your community with one another to receive and respond to Jesus as he's offered in the gospel so that they're united to him by faith, and that's only half of it. Then to walk with them, teaching them how do they commune with God? How do they live in community? How do they go out and work and witness on commission for the world? You see, a disciple maker, there's an old phrase which is each one for each one. A disciple maker is willing to take spiritual responsibility for at least one other person to walk them through this process. That's what fruitfulness looks like for New City. Everything we're doing, congregations, communities, circles, common rhythm, all of our communication, our worship, everything is unto that end. And if it's not, we probably should prune it for greater greater fruitfulness. Okay. So I'm saying all of this, and I said this exact same thing in August. If you don't believe me, believe the man. By that I mean C.S. Lewis. He says this this is the whole of Christianity. There is nothing else. Lean in. What do you have to say, Lewis? It is so easy to get muddled about that. It's easy to think that the church has a lot of different objects: education, building, missions, holding services, all good things, right? The church exists for nothing else but to draw men and women into Christ, to make them little Christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself are simply a waste of time. God became man for no other purpose. It is even doubtful, you know, whether the whole universe was created for any other purpose. It says in the Bible that the whole universe was made for Christ and that everything is to be gathered together in him. This idea of drawing others in and then forming them so that they become little Christs out in the world. You see the movement of centripetal and centrifugal force that we see in the disciple-defined diagram that Lewis is talking about here. Okay, so all of that is a long-winded way of saying we want God's evaluation of New City's fruitfulness to be our evaluation of New City's fruitfulness. And the only way that we can know what that is, learn what that is, is by looking at scripture itself. So if you have a Bible or device, go ahead and get 2 Timothy out in front of you. Now, don't look at your worship guide because this is what happens when preachers change their sermon text a little bit too late in the game. So look at a Bible or device and get 2 Timothy chapter 2 in front of you. Now, last year I said I preached on this and I really talked about verses 1 through 7. And so I'm actually gonna punt on most of that and say, go back and listen to the sermon exactly a year ago. If you want one through seven. This is my recap. I said that the grit of disciple making is spiritual parenting, the goal of disciple making is generational discipleship. The grit of disciple making is that you have to give your life away, and that the grace of disciple making is union and communion with Jesus. And so today, all we're gonna do is I want to double-click on that last one. What is the grace of disciple making? What does it look like that we are called into communion? How do we practice that in real life? What exactly does that mean? And so we're gonna linger over verse one together. Look with me at 2 Timothy chapter 2, verse 1. Paul writing to Timothy says this. You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus. You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus. Many of you maybe know 2 Timothy is Paul's final letter. These are the dying words of a spiritual father to a spiritual son. And as he's about to die, what does Paul say to his disciple, his child in the faith? He says, Be strong. Be strong. Now, if you're familiar with the scope of scripture, Moses on his deathbed, if you will, said the exact same thing to Joshua. He said, Be strong, Joshua. David to his son Solomon, as he's about to hand off the kingdom of Israel to his son, he says, Be strong, Solomon. Now we get to Paul speaking to Timothy, and he says, You then, my child, be strengthened, be strong. Now, there's something important to note here, and I'm only going to fly over verses three through six, but if you read those, you'd see that there's three pictures Paul gives: a soldier, an athlete, and a farmer. All three, very different vocations in many ways. All three of them are characterized by a certain amount of strength. It requires strength to be a soldier and an athlete and a farmer. You see, discipleship, it is a muscular thing. It requires grit and fortitude and resilience to be a disciple of Jesus. So then does that mean Christianity is not for the faint of heart? Well, I think there's a hint in the text. Look again at verse 1, it says, You then my child. Now it's family worship Sunday. Kids, I know you're in here. You are known for lots of lovely things, but strength is not one of them. So when he calls Timothy a child, not a man, not some strong, masculine. It's not what he says. He says, You then my child. So what is this? Well, there's a paradox, lots of paradoxes at the heart of Christianity, but there's one right here. Paul is calling the weak to be strong. He's saying, in order to do what you're called to do, you must be strong, and yet he acknowledges that we are weak. What do we make of this? Well, look again at the verse. Verse 1, it says, You then, my child, be strengthened. That's translated properly because this is a present passive imperative. What does that mean? It means that strength is not generated from within, but received from outside. That's what it means. Be strengthened. It means that since he can command this, he's commanding him to open himself up to a strength from outside of himself. So if you're in this room and you're like, hey, all that you just said about disciple making, all that stuff, I feel too weak to engage in that. Welcome to the club. So did Timothy. So was Paul. Paul said three times to Jesus, Would you take away this thorn in my flesh? And what did Jesus say to him? My grace is sufficient for you in your weakness. In your weakness. So weakness, far from barring you from being a disciple or a disciple maker, is the only thing really in this text that qualifies you. But it's not just weakness, it is an active passivity, as Francis Schaefer called it. I prefer an active receptivity towards receiving a strength from outside you. We say that communion with God is receiving and responding. It starts with receiving, it starts with acknowledging your limits, your weakness, and receiving a strength from outside of you. This isn't resignation. It's not inactivity, it's not let go and let God. It's actually more like Mary, who yielded herself, her very body, to the work of God in her life. It's a good way to describe what discipleship is. It's yielding our hearts, souls, minds, and strength to the work of God, to the strength of God passing into our lives. And so rather than strengthening yourself, this isn't about fitness, although statistically, 79% of resolutions for the new year are fitness related. This is not a fitness goal here. It's not about that so much. It's more about placing yourself in the place where strength can be found. Where is that? Look again at verse 1. It says, You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus. Jesus Himself is the place where the resources of strength can be found. And this is actually exactly what we see in Deuteronomy 31. When Moses is dying, he says, Joshua, be strong. He says, Be strong, for the Lord your God is with you. That's the rest of that. And in 1 Samuel 30, which you'll read on Wednesday in the Seeing Jesus Together Bible reading plan. And I'd encourage you to underline this. There's this moment when all goes bad for David. So people come in, they capture their wives and their things, and they go out, and David's own people are about to kill him. And David is distressed. And then it says in 1 Samuel 30, verse 6, but David strengthened himself in the Lord his God. I want to touch that. I want to know that in lived experience. I will not settle for anything less than empirically proving by my discipleship to Jesus that there is a strength accessible to normal people like me that is outside of me. And I want that for you too. That's why we're being called into communion. I want to know what David knew when he said he strengthened himself in the Lord his God. What does that mean? What does that look like for us? Well, I believe Paul knew it. I believe Paul knew it because he says to the Ephesian church in Ephesians 6.10, he says, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. An energy, a power that's accessible, available to us, to those who would receive it from Jesus. And so, what does that actually mean? What does that look like? Why I cued you a little bit to this. It has to do with the nearness of Jesus, the presence of Jesus, right? In the Great Commission, Jesus tells us to go do the thing that every church ought to be doing, making disciples. And he ends the whole thing by saying, I will be with you always. You see, the presence, the nearness, the closeness of Jesus is the source of our strength. And so, how do we do this? How do we do this practically? What does it actually look like to do this in real life? As I said, normal, ordinary people who just happen to be united to the creator of the universe. What does that look like? I want to give you three things from our text, starting with the first one, which is I believe that being called into communion is a moment by moment practicing of the presence of God. Look with me at verse 8. 2 Timothy 2.8 says this: remember Jesus Christ. Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel. Remember Jesus Christ. The idea of remembering or reminding or redirecting your attention over and over and over again to the living, resurrected Lord who is in our midst. That's what Paul tells Timothy to do. He says, remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, not in the tomb anymore, alive and well. Hudson Taylor had this beautiful prayer that I pray sometimes, Lord, be to me today a bright, living reality. Jesus is alive and well, and he's active in our midst, and he's with you in the mundane, ordinary minutiae of everyday life. And so this moment by moment practicing of the presence of God, I think is important because it it recognizes human nature. If you spend much time with humans, like yourself, you realize that we actually have pretty limited control. Even our willpower is pretty finite. It's why all the literature around this time of year is about habits. And how do you build habits and how do you sustain habits? Because your willpower is pretty weak. But here's one thing you do have willpower over to direct your attention. You get to you get to choose what to focus your mind on. Now, I I I know enough psychology to know your mind gets grabbed and ensnared and entangled and pulled in a thousand different directions. And yet you can unhook your mind and draw it back to a focal point of attention. It's one of the things we do have active control over. And so, because of that, I believe that we can choose what we want to think about. Now, this is a habitual thing over time. And this is what Dallas Willard says about it. He says the first and most basic thing we can and must do is to keep God before our minds. This is the fundamental secret of caring for our souls. Our part in practicing the presence of God is to direct and redirect our minds constantly to God. In the early time of our practicing, we may well be challenged by our burdensome habits of dwelling on things that are less than God. Anybody say amen? Your mind draws towards things that are less than God. There's a burdensomeness to that. But he says it like this: but these are habits, not the law of gravity, and they can be broken. He goes on to say, a new grace-filled habit will replace the former ones as we take intentional steps toward keeping God before us. Soon our minds will return to God as the needle of a compass constantly returns to the north. If God is the great longing of our souls, he will become the pole star of our inward beings. This was David's spiritual secret in Psalm 1680, he says, I have set the Lord always before me. Because he's at my right hand, I shall not be shaken. You want to be resilient? You want to be unshakable? Set the Lord always before you, David says. How do we do that? Here's a few ideas. Pay attention to the transitions in your day. You're coming out of a meeting, you're going into class, you're in car line, you're getting a phone call. And take those moments as opportunities, invitations, if you will, to redirect your attention towards God. I have uh one of those old school Casio watches, it beeps every hour. I used to hate that. I turned it back on recently because I wanted to do this. That beep is now a church bell reminding me to pray. It's saying, draw your attention. Attend to the fact that you are not alone in this universe. In fact, you are in Christ Jesus. That's one of the ways that we get to do this. Another one is the moments when you feel weak can be cues that you are weak and you need strength from outside yourself. I can't tell you how many meetings I have on a regular basis that I never feel capable for. I always feel out of my depth. That doesn't go away. You will be discipling people and they will say this phrase. It's a beautiful phrase. I almost want to take off my shoes and honor them because I say this is holy ground when people say this to me. I've never told anyone that before. Powerful moment of being known and loved in community, and yet most of us feel way out of our depth to handle that moment. You are. And in fact, as soon as you feel like you're like, oh, I can crush these moments, you're in bad shape. Use that moment of weakness to respond by going, Lord, would you have mercy? Help me. Give me wisdom, give me strength, give me words. I don't have them. I'm just a little child. But you have them, and you open yourself, you direct your attention towards God. You practice moment by moment the presence of God. Let me tell you two stories. There was a hospital chaplain who was kind of thrown into the deep end in his first year of chaplaincy, and he said, I saw more death in the first two weeks of my chaplaincy than I'd ever imagined or ever seen in my life. He said, I was weary, I was overwhelmed, I was receiving what's called vicarious trauma. It was too much. And he said, He learned, actually. When he walked into a room, not knowing what to expect, he was he was able to offer his very thoughts and feelings to God and thereby to die to them. He said, Lord, I'm tired of death, but these people need a chaplain who can be present and attentive and serve them well. I want to run away and finish quickly, so I die to that desire, and I trust that you will strengthen me to serve them. Help me to be attentive to your spirit and your people in this next encounter. I don't know what you're gonna go through or what you're gonna walk into this upcoming week, but I promise you there will be things that are outside of your ability to master and to control, and that's a good place to be as a human being. It's an invitation to practice the presence of God in that moment. Another story, because I think that asking and answering these questions of communion that are on your worship guide that we say every Sunday, which is, Lord, what are you saying and doing? And given who I am, how can I respond? Uh there's a story of a man, many of you will know him uh right away, which is George Washington Carver. He's famous for being the inventor of peanut butter. But I hope you know the backstory. He's actually an amazing human being. Um, you see, George Washington Carver was born in slavery in Missouri in 1864. And he was so brilliant that he excelled beyond his peers in his day, but he constantly faced ridicule. This is why. Not only because he was a black man, but also because he believed that science and faith were integrally connected, never to be separated. He called his lab God's Little Workshop, where he did his experiments. And he says when he would go out and study and explore nature, he described nature as full of broadcast stations whereby God is constantly communicating to him. He was asking questions like, Lord, what are you saying and doing in this peanut right here? Now he tells the story of going out one morning and praying, and he said it like this All my life I've risen regularly at four in the morning to go into the woods and talk with God. That's where he reveals his secrets to me. When everybody else is asleep, I hear God best and learn my plan. Now, what's he doing in this moment? He's going out to be alone with God and God alone, and God reveals his secrets to him about the peanut. He tells his story, he says, God told me. Uh he told me that that my task is to explore the peanut because anything bigger than that would just be too big for me to handle. And he came up with 300 different uses for the peanut, which might not seem like that big of a deal now. We love peanut butter, blah, blah, blah. This changed the lives of countless people who were stuck in poverty because the peanut was accessible. Now they could use it for shampoo and food and different things like that. All because God worked through this man who was willing to show up moment by moment and ask the question, Lord, what are you saying and doing? You see, so communion with God is about creativity for the world. It's not just about you in your cloister, having good feelings with your cup of coffee and a candle lit. It's about bettering the world, it's about making a difference. This is what was said about George Washington Carver inscribed on the Roosevelt Medal that he was awarded in 1939 to a scientist humbly seeking the guidance of God and a liberator to men of the white race as well as the black. This man was an advocate for justice in his time, and it all started in one place: communion with God. And it flowed from that place to change the world. George Washington Carvers, this beautiful picture of what it means to moment by moment practice the presence of God. That's the first one. The second one is that we want to day by day feed on the word of God. Day by day feed on the word of God. Look at verse 9 with me. Second Timothy 2 9 says this. He's talking about preaching the gospel. He says, for which I am suffering. For which I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal. But the word of God is not bound. Paul's in chains, the word of God is not. That's what he's saying here. Charles Spurgeon said it like this The Word of God is like a lion. You don't have to defend a lion, you just let it out of its cage, takes care of the rest. The word of God is not bound, it has a potency, a power. But one of the primary sources of power for us, strength for us, is when we feed on the word of God. In Psalm 104, it says that God gave man bread to strengthen him. And in Matthew 4, Jesus says to the devil, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. There's a way to engage with Scripture, and I'm calling it feeding on the Word of God. That's actually nourishing and strengthening. Now, the study that Chris Moore referenced a little bit ago, this 2009 study from the Center for Bible Engagement, had about over 40,000 participants in this. So this is not like some JV study. This is a big deal. 40,000 participants, and they found that if you engaged in the Bible, you had uh, additional to the ones that Chris mentioned, 50% lower odds of being uh drunkenness and alcoholism. He said, they said 68% less likely to engage in sexual sin and teens, by the way, uh lowers your chances of risky behavior more than worshiping and praying, reading the Bible. Now, those are the kind of things that staves off, but here's the keystone habit things, the things that it improves. If you read the scriptures, it says sharing your faith goes up 200%. So here's the thing. If you want to share your faith more, read your Bible more. That's what this is saying. Not only that, discipling others goes up 230%. Can you see why we're making a big deal about this scripture practice in the common rhythm? We say scripture practice is hearing God's voice in scripture before any others. That's intentional. There's a tech discipline there. Saying no to text messages and social media and news apps and email, saying no to those things. They don't get first voice into your life. The word of God gets the first voice into your life. Now here's the kicker. All of those amazing stats about reading the Bible are only true of people who read the Bible four or more days a week. Listen to this. If you read the scriptures, reading, listening, doesn't matter, either one's fine. If you read the scriptures three days or less, it does basically nothing to you. Isn't that insane? Four is the threshold, four's the inflection point, four is the moment when it goes from basically null to exponential growth. This is what the data shows. Now, why do I think that is? Well, why do you eat four or more days a week? Because it's nourishing and strengthening, and it does something to you. That's the word of God. You see, not only that, but I think four or more is a saturation point. Now you go from being somebody who sometimes reads the Bible to being a Bible reader. You are engaged in the ta in the text of scripture more often than not. That's the key. More often than not. And so day by day, as we're reading the word, as we're engaging with it, um, this is the this is the promise: consistency over intensity. It doesn't say if they memorized it, meditated, studied it, they simply read four days a week. If this is you, start with five minutes in the morning. Start with ten minutes, whatever it takes to get going, to get four or more, and begin now. Now, if you're wondering how, what does it actually look like? I've got a common rhythm workshop for you to come to next Sunday, led by our elders. It's gonna be amazing. You can find out more on our app. Okay, so moment by moment we practice the presence of God day by day. We feed on the word of God. This is where I'm gonna land the plane. In all of life, we participate in the Son of God. In all of life, we participate in the Son of God. Look at verses 11 through 13 with me. This is what it says. The saying is trustworthy. In other words, you could build your life on this saying right here. The saying is trustworthy, for if we have died with him, we will also live with him. If we endure with him, we will also reign with him. One of my favorite definitions of discipleship is training for reigning. You will reign with King Jesus one day. If you endure, if you die. Why? Because he wants to entrust his power to people who are trustworthy. The people he can trust are those who die to themselves, just like Jesus died to himself. Those who endure with him. This is the good news of this text right here. If we don't give up, we win. That changes your life. Doesn't matter how low things are, if you don't give up, you win if you're in Christ. That is incredible. But if we do give up, there's a warning here. Look at the text. It says, if we deny him, he also will deny us. Jesus was very clear about this. If you deny me before others, I will deny you before my Father who is in heaven. The point of this is, is how can Jesus advocate for you in eternity if you denied him in time? If things got so bad that you gave up, dipped out, abandoned ship. Now, here's the last part, which I think is encouraging. It says in verse 13, if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself. Now, there's two possible interpretations of that verse. I'm giving them to you because I don't want to try to pull a fast one on you. Both are biblical, but this text is only saying one and not the other. Here's the two possibilities. When it says if we are faithless, it means that we have abandoned the faith. If that's the case, God is faithful to not only his promises, but his warnings, and you will depart from him into the outer darkness. That's one possible interpretation. It's not the one I hold. The one I hold is that when it says if we are faithless, it means weak, wobbly, weary, easily swayed, fickle, but still saying yes to Jesus in the end. If that's you, if you're faithless, you say, Lord, I believe, but help my unbelief. If that's you, when we're faithless, he remains faithful. Because he cannot deny himself. Here's my exegetical rationale for that. God cannot deny himself, and it says at the beginning of the text that you are in Christ Jesus, you belong to him. He cannot deny Jesus, the head cannot say to his arm, nah, not me. He cannot deny himself, even if that arm needs to do some bicep curls. This is good news for those of us who are weak and faltering. It's said differently. It's a world of difference, people who get knocked off of a ship overboard in the midst of a hurricane versus those who abandon ships so they don't have to take the helm. Those are two different categories of people. And so even if this morning you're feeling faithless, weak. Psalm 63, verse 8, one of my favorite texts in all of scripture says this my soul clings to you, your right hand upholds me. Which is more important, your clinging or his holding? Let me tell you a quick story. When my boy Augustine was two years old, took him to the new Smyrna, walked him out into the waves, ankle, knee, waist, it's getting deeper and deeper and deeper. And eventually I picked him up and held him. And I could feel his little two-year-old hands gripping me with all his might because he's nervous. If you've been in the ocean, you're not in control. He knows that. And I've got my arms underneath him. Now let me ask you this: which arms are more important? The two-year-olds or the 32-year-olds? My soul clings to you. But underneath are the everlasting arms, upholding me in all things. And so, brothers and sisters, if if you then, my brothers and sisters, want to live the life of faith, discipleship to Jesus, to make disciples, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, moment by moment, by practicing the presence of God, day by day, by feeding on the word of God, and in all of life, by participating in the Son of God. Let's pray. Father, we pause before you now and we say, We are weak and needy. We are not strong. We do not have it all together. But oh, thanks be to God that you that that doesn't qualify us. What qualifies us is our willingness to come to you with open hands to receive. Strengthen us, Jesus. Strengthen us through your word, strengthen us at this table as we come and feast with you and on you by faith. We pray these things in your name. Amen.