Steady As We Go
First B Jackson
2024-07-07

Automatically transcribed. Where this and the recording disagree, the recording is the record.

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This is Lisa. Right? I heard the news like Whatever.

Check. Check. Ready when you are.

Good morning. First b, Jackson, Wyoming. Thank you for being here. It's a beautiful, beautiful day. I am not Carl Clemmer.

He is away enjoying some family time, but we're gonna do our best. Why don't you guys stand and, and we'll sing. We'll praise God. Here's an encouraging word from Isaiah 25 to lead us into worship. It says, Lord, you are my God.

I will exalt you. I will give thanks to your name for you have worked wonders, plans formed long ago with perfect faithfulness. Amen. Would you join us in singing Evidence? I've seen the evidence of your goodness all over my life.

Amen. Y'all can have a seat, have a few announcements. First BBQ. Oh, were y'all here for the last one of these? It was fantastic.

That was so much fun. And it's happening again next Sunday, July 14. We're planning a couple more throughout the summer, but July 14, next week, right out here in between services around 10:00, it'll start and we'll go till around eleven something. That's the way it goes. And it was so much fun.

First b b q meat and breakfast, brunchies stuff. Brunchy doesn't sound very good to me. It was really good. Alright. Really, really good.

That's happening. Games, food, fun, fellowship outside next week on the green space. First week camp out is happening. Mike Demetrius, I saw him this morning. There he is.

That's one of the guys you can talk to for more information about the church camp out. You have anything you wanna say?

Yeah. We I think we have a spot picked up depending on the level of light.

Okay. Okay. That's good. July 19 through the twenty first. And then again, August 23 to twenty fifth down around Palisades.

You can talk to either Brian McCooey or Mike Demetrius. Right. There he is.

Come for the weekend, whatever.

Whatever works with your plans. Come come for the day or the weekend or whatever. So sound booth volunteers, we have Jeff up there this week and this is his solo. He's up there. Thank you very much for stepping in to do that, Jeff.

And if you feel like you have a specific propensity towards that sort of service, please let us know and we will train you. Sunday school grades three to five will not meet during the summer starting last week or today. Today is July 7. So third through fifth. Miss Crystal is gonna be teaching for the first and second kindergarten through first, second grade.

But if you wanted to go down, you could do that, but they're not meeting. The rest of the teachers third through fifth are not meeting for the rest of the summer starting today. Middle school, high school, Sunday school does meet during the 9AM service during the summer in the library. So middle school, high school, that's still going on. And that's it.

Is there anything else I've forgotten, Diane? No? I have one announcement. So I have one. And this is a prayer request to you and we're gonna pray together right now.

Do you all know the Griffiths, Josh and Keira, and Augie, and Kirier? They were involved in a car wreck. One car rollover car wreck south of Eden, Wyoming on Friday. And I went down Friday evening and stayed over. And Keira is fine now, released from the hospital.

Augie is fine now, released from the hospital. Kirier walked away just unclipping herself from her car seat. Praise God. Josh is still in the hospital at University of Utah, and he had a couple of vertebra fused in his neck. There's not any paralyzation.

He's gonna be fine. But I wanted y'all to know that so that you can be praying for them as a family, and you'd be praying for them specifically for God's healing journey that's in front of them. So would you pray with me right now? God, thank you for thank you. Thank you.

In Jesus' name, we ask for your healing hand, Lord, to be upon your people. I ask that it'd be a testimony to your good work, your finished work on the cross, Lord. I pray that we would be leaning in towards you. We'd be leaning in towards you for whatever you want for us. In Jesus name, I am so grateful, Lord, that that call was everybody is okay.

God almighty, would you work in our lives so that we'd be a comfort to those who are hurting? Would you work in their lives so that they can experience complete healing and get back to the road in front of them. In Jesus' name, I pray that you'd bless the Griffith family for all of the extended family and all the friends who have been impacted by this too. Lord, I pray that you would with your divine comfort draw us in close as a family of God. Amen.

Would you stand and sing with us?

Yeah. And occasionally, we will greet our neighbors. Let's do that this morning.

Good morning, How you doing, buddy? Good to see you. Alright. Oh.

We shout your name God, we thank you for your steadfast love that never ceases. Your love never fails, and it never gives up, and it never runs out on us no matter what we do. And we thank you for your grace and your mercy that you have on our lives. Help help us to extend that grace and mercy to those around us.

In your name we pray. Amen.

You can have a seat. We're, we're coming to the worship through giving part of the service. I'll invite the usher ushers to come on forward and pray with Ray, would you pray for us?

Sure. God Almighty, I come to you today gathered in your name. Here we are, Lord. Some of us perhaps seeking, but Lord, we're all here. We're looking for you.

We're looking for you to show up in our lives. And Lord God almighty, I pray that you'd make yourself available today for those who are reaching out. I know you do. You say everyone who calls out to you, you hear em lord. So, I pray that you would direct us in the way we ought to go.

I I pray for this offering, Lord, that it would be used to advance the good gospel, the news of Christ, the news of salvation available in Christ. We wanna see your will done on Earth in your way. Lord, would you direct us as a collective body how we do that? And individually, Lord, would you direct us from the moment we got we wake up in the morning that we would know we're walking with God confidence. We're walking a path forward with you.

In Jesus name, we ask your blessing on this. For those, Lord, who are hurt and ailing, we pray that we would be like a balm to them, that we would be able to help with the healing and help with transitions. In Jesus name, we come before you asking for you to do what only you can do but direct us to do what we should do. In Jesus name, amen. Amen.

Thank you, Ryan. Lisa. Okay. He might know what that says. Hey.

There are a few people to do. I I use this line in weddings a lot and it says this, if we are living by the spirit, you could translate it since if you want to. It's it's a rhetorical deal. If we're living by the spirit folks, then let's be walking by the spirit. And actually the way that it's phrased, I I did a kind of a in the word order.

If we are living by the spirit, by the spirit, then we also should be walking. So that's Galatians five twenty five. It is in a book where Paul is talking about, hey, you accepted God's grace and now you're trying to work it out through the law. You're trying behavior modification. Right?

You're trying to do it based on what I know I ought to do. Now, I'm gonna just aim for that. But if it is by grace that you've been saved through the spirit of God, then we need to be walking by the spirit daily walking close to thee. And that's the only way that we're gonna be able to get through this Christian life without just being pull yourself up by your bootstraps kind of behavior modification. So step by step, I've been trying to preach this message for about two months now.

Since I finished going through the whole New Testament, I felt like I needed to do that first, as even handed as I could go through, and it took twelve years to go through the whole New Testament. But the thing that has been in my life since I've been pastoring here, the thing that has been the most spiritually helpful to me, as crazy as it sounds, to all of you who know how much we read and study the Bible and stick to what it says here. The most transformational thing I've seen in people's lives is them taking seriously the 12 steps. Are you with me? This is it's not heresy.

I promise it's not heresy. I'm gonna try to go and give you the biblical underpinning for the steps. But today, we're gonna cover steady as we go. We're gonna cover just the first two steps and probably the Roman road alongside that. Okay?

Before I do that, I'm gonna tell a story. So after I had been here for a very short while, maybe a year, maybe. It was a Friday morning. I was in the office early, which is kinda odd. Now it's really odd.

But at the time, I was there early. And a guy comes wandering through the door and pretty rough shape. And just a physical description. I'll call the guy Ron, that's not his name. Ron comes through the door.

And he stumbles in and and my light is on, so he comes in and kinda knocks on the door and and just or stumbles through the door, whatever. And he said, hey, can you tell me about Jesus? Now, for Baptist pastor, that's a pretty good softball right there, you know. That's like, what you're praying for is that somebody stumble in off the street and ask you to tell them about Jesus. I said, tell me your story, Tell me what what brought you to this.

And he said, I'm living in my van in the ranch home parking lot. I've been there for a while. Trying to work was hard. I've been drunk for the last twelve years. I was drinking before that, but I've been steady drunk for twelve years.

And I was left my wife left me in the truck in the middle of the Oregon Desert. And I was out there for several days, and I burned up my eyesight out there. And I am having a hard time. And he said, I called the only person in the world that I call her mom. She's not my mom.

And he told me a side story about his mom and that that was not a good relationship. It's tough. And he said, but this lady, I called her this morning and I said, I can't keep living like this. This is the end. I can't keep doing this.

And she said, Ron, get up from where you are and walk until you find somebody that'll tell you about Jesus. Just walk. There are churches there. I don't care where you are. There are churches there.

And so he walked from the ranch home parking lot, and he didn't find anybody. Just didn't find anybody. It was early. It was early before people get to work usually. And he came in here and he said, so that's why I said that.

Can you tell me about Jesus? Because the only person I trust in the world. And this guy's padded up pretty good. He had he had one in particular right here on the back of his neck, and it was in Chinese. And I he didn't look Chinese, you know.

And I said, what does that what's that say? He goes, it says trust no one in Chinese. And I said, you speak Chinese? He goes, nope. Do you go to a Chinese tattoo parlor?

He said, nope. I said, well, you trusted one somebody then. He inked the back of your neck with trust no one. He said, actually do trust this one person. I call her mom, she's not my mom.

But I called her this morning when I woke up and I said, I can't keep doing this. So it was either end it or I went with what she said. So here I am. So I could have done the Roman Road to salvation right there, I suppose. That's the the standard method.

Right? And I could have could have said, well, what you need to do, you need Jesus, pray the center's prayer. Here we are. Let's get down on our knees right here together. That was an easy one.

But the spirit, I don't usually blame the spirit for much, but it was obvious that that it wasn't a pray the sinner's prayer type thing. This is a long it took him a long time to get in this shape it was probably gonna take him a long way out. And I was going through the study of the book of John here. Right? We had started and I said, man, will you just hang with me?

Will you just hang with me? Can we can we just start getting together and just go through if your trusted one said, tell me about Jesus. I said, this is the best way I know how to get to know him. I'm a text guy, but this this text of the gospel of John is is straightforward and pretty simple. And he said, I burned up my eyes, man.

I can't read. I can't read. I can't read a Bible. There's not a large enough print Bible. I said, how big does it need to be?

He said, I can read signs when the letters are like this big. I said, I'll print you a gospel of John with letters an inch and a quarter high. And so the gospel of John is normally 22 pages, you know. But I printed him a book. It was 240 something pages long and printed it out on the printer.

And I said, I'll go through it with you. It'll help me because I'm preaching it to the crowd here on Sunday mornings. He said, man, I've I don't know about I don't know about this, but I trust that she knew what she was talking about when she said find somebody tell me about Jesus. You're saying this is the best way. He said, I'm gonna be here Sunday morning.

I have drunk my last drop. I'm not doing this. And that the promises kind of thing is pretty common when somebody makes up a decision like this is gonna be the thing that breaks the back of this. So that was Friday morning. And we don't ever when we help people out, we don't ever require of them that they come to the service.

We don't ever require them that they do anything in particular. But he's when he was leaving the door, he said, I'm gonna be here. What time is the service? Oh, we get that question a lot. Nine and eleven.

Okay. If you want less people, it'll be eleven. If you want more people to be the nine, I'm gonna be there. I'm gonna be there. What's your name again?

I told him. Alright, Ron. Well but and we he stayed. He told me. He stayed all morning.

And when he left here, he was he was not stumbling. He was bouncing out here. He was so excited and so happy. So I'm here finishing the sermon at Saturday night at 10:00 in the evening because that's what we do. And I got a call, and it was no caller ID, which means either jail or mental institution, I always take those calls.

Usually, it could be a salesman. There's one guy, Jehovah's Witness named Nelson. He looks I'm not joking. He looked up Baptist pastors and a list of us and he calls me, then he calls Carl, then he calls Mike. He's behind no caller ID.

He does it on his lunch break. It happens every time. He's trying to convince me my theology, my Greek is wrong. That's not the norm though. Usually, it's from the jail or it's from mental hospital.

So I I get the call and I can hear in the background. It's the jailer. Obviously perturbed and I can hear this in the background. And I thought, finally, she said, listen. I got a guy here named Ron, and he said that he promised you that he's gonna be in church tomorrow.

He said to call you at this number. This phone church phone number, you know. And she said, and he is literally beating his head against the wall. We don't usually go for people's requests like this, but I thought I'll try the pastor at church on Saturday night at 10:00 because he's not gonna answer. But I did and I said, well, can I come see him?

She said, the whole reason he wanted me to call is for tell you that he swore to you he'd be in church on Sunday morning, and I can promise you he will I said, can I come see him? So I went to see him, and he had a had a bloody spot right here where he'd been hitting his head against the concrete wall. And I know that there's nowadays, they put people down and, you know, put them in binders or everything, but he was doing that to himself. He had been mistreating himself for a long long long time and he had seen hope. And on Saturday, it was in January, so 17 degrees below zero, And he's living in the ranch home lot in his van.

So he cranks the van to keep warm. He was not driving anywhere. He wasn't even in the van when the police showed up. He was in the bathroom. That's why he parked where he parked.

There's another fellow there, but it was his van. Engine was running. That's driving. And so they took him in, which is reasonable. I'm not saying don't do that.

But it was one of those things where when he sobered up, he's probably gonna be alright. And he'd have some legal trouble for a while, but he'd he'd he'd get through it if he could stay. But he he had made the determination that he could get over this on his own. He just was introduced to Jesus really, just barely. We barely covered anything.

The first 18 verses are the most confusing verses in in John, and we covered that that day. And under his own power, but hopeful he left And he didn't make it a full day before it's cold, and he felt he needed it because he was been drunk for twelve years. He's going into DTs and having problems. And so he gets arrested. He's in the house in the jail for a while.

And I'm thinking, I'm not a lawyer, but this seems that feels like I could help get you out of this. You know? So I went to the arraignment and talked to judge, and the judge said, he really he needs help, but we don't have any beds available right now in Wyoming. We don't have anything. We have an inpatient that's good here, but that's not what he needs.

And so we're gonna hold on to him for a while. When they let him loose, they let him loose on there's program here in Teton County where you blow in the tube at 07:00 in the morning, 07:00 in the evening. And if you blow zeros, you get to stay out on your own recognizance. But if you blow hot at all, then you go back to jail. So he went in for one of those morning meetings.

And when he went in, he had some in his system. And they're like, alright. Well, this is in between. He'd been let loose. He was doing alright.

He's blowing clean every day for a few weeks. And then it comes upon him, and he's having a hard time. And when he blows hot, he thought the last time I was stuck in here, didn't have that 243 page gospel of John, and I didn't have my glasses, so I couldn't even read anything. So he got up from his chair while they were going to get the paperwork, sitting right there in the vestibule of the jail. And he got up and he went and he moved his van to somewhere where it would be safe.

He got his glasses and he got that Bible, and he walked back to the jail. But by that time, he had an APB out on him because he ran, which creates all kinds of other legal issues. And he ended up being in jail for a longer time that time. And I went and the judge said, Reverend McDaniel, are you here to speak character wise? I said, no, but I'm I'm here willing to take him to anywhere that would take him.

I've talked to a couple of places. There's a place in Riverton. It's called Set Free. It's church based, but it's a bed, you know, and I'm willing to take him to Riverton, Casper, wherever wherever we can get Salt Lake. And so he said, well, I'm releasing him to you.

Alright. And he went and he went through the program. He started the 12 steps. And he had a couple of flips here and there, but he bless bless God. He got clean and sober, and he did so by sincerely undertaking the steps.

And he didn't know Jesus. He came to know him in the book, you know, the in John, he came to know him. But the power of knowing the next step to take is really really helpful. When I'm trying to help somebody get through forgiveness, I have a little sequential model that I think is really helpful because we don't know the next step to take. So about two years after that Friday morning, he was in a program for the second time.

Took him actually, the first time was to Rivers and the second time was to Casper. And he stayed there for a couple of weeks. And then I heard from the place that he had left, and I I was kinda upset because I feel like, oh, he's on a bend or somewhere. But he was overwhelmed that he needed to patch up the relationship with his actual mother. And so he went to her before she died, and they were able to make their peace with one another, and it was really beautiful.

And so since then, anytime that anybody has there's never been another softball like that where somebody stumbles in. I haven't had another one of those. But I know a lot of people that when they get to the place of admitting they have a problem that they can't do anything about, it's fertile soil. It's a really really good moment. So if you're in that situation with alcohol, by all means, there are resources available.

I help. But our issue is our issue. We all have a different issue. I'm not so Southern Baptist that I will just decry that and nothing else, but we all have some problems. So Jesus on the role of the Holy Spirit Here we are at scripture.

Jesus on the role of the Holy Spirit says, I tell you the truth, this is in the upper room discourse. It's to your advantage that I'm leaving. Now that's hard to believe for those 12 sitting there, isn't it? No. We've been following you for twelve, for three years with the 12.

What is going on? I I don't. And he says, if I don't leave then the helper, that's the Holy Spirit, the paraclete will not come to you. But if I do go, I'm gonna send him to you and when he comes, he will convict the world regarding sin. There is something about the spirit of God that he is always moving and he's moving to convict of sin and to convince of God's righteousness and of judgment regarding sin because they don't believe in me.

That It's it's a lack of belief in God or lack of fear or reverence for God that allows us to believe that our sin is just okay. And regarding righteousness because I'm going to the father and I have been your example. Jesus is saying to them and he's saying to us, I have been your example of righteousness, but I'm going and you're no longer gonna be seeing me, so I'm gonna send to you the Holy Spirit and you will know internally when we go to communion in a few minutes. He says, this is a new covenant in my blood. That they've been looking forward to that new covenant for a long long time.

Jeremiah's day when he says, I'm gonna write my law on their hearts. It's gonna be I'm gonna give them a heart of flesh, not of stone. They've been looking forward to a time where it'd be internal instead of external. You're not gonna see me in regarding judgment because the ruler of this world has been judged. The devil has been judged.

He is going to face an eternity separated from God and his task is to try to take as many with him through deception as he can because the truth of God sets free, but the lie of the devil ensnares and holds on to us, enslaves us. And when we are ready to admit the problems that we have, and I'm using just a representative sample right here. It's it's a good succinct list right here of the works of the flesh and it's right before the fruit of spirit. And the contrast is, that's the greatest place in the Bible where that's the shortest version of this. The works of the flesh, the Bible says are evident and they are sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy.

Drunkenness I've been talking about, but it's just a it's a good example because we all know somebody who struggles with that and no matter what they do on their own accord, they've been able to unable to set themselves free. But then, some of us have seen people who have hit upon these steps or the sequence or a complete surrender to God where it turns and they start living out of this other list. So drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. So it's a representative sample. It's not all of them.

I don't know what yours is. I don't I kinda know what mine are. I kinda. You know what? When you feel like you've got a handle on on what my thing is, you then discover that you got something else, you know.

And there's a progressive way that God reveals our own sin to us. And those the sequence of the steps is really helpful for that. So works of the flesh through the spirit, Galatians five nineteen through 23, immediately preceding by the way, Galatians five twenty five, which is if we're gonna live by the spirit, let us then be walking according to the spirit. So that's it. The Roman Road.

The Roman Road, I have been taught this so many times and I think of it and it's in my head. Romans three twenty three, we all have sinned. So when I say that I don't know what your problem is, I do know that you have a problem though. Okay? I do know that because all of us have sinned.

Romans six twenty three says, the wages of sin is death And so the Roman road is taking you from, okay, I have a problem and that problem has a consequence. Romans five eight says that God demonstrates his own love toward us in that while we were still sinners, he made the provision Christ died for us. He made the way when there was no way. Romans five eight. Romans six twenty three says, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Wait a second. The wages of sin is death and I'm a sinner, but he took that punishment and I get eternal and abundant life. Wow. If you confess with your mouth Jesus said, Lord, you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

This is a kind of a tool, you know, Roman the Roman road. Now, we've been going through in first being the Bible together. A lot of us have been reading each morning a couple of verses, a few verses. We're up to Romans chapter eight and we've seen all almost all those that I've mentioned. And it's an amazing way that God is kinda revealing it.

Right after somebody reads through the gospel of John and gets to know who Jesus is, I usually say, go to Romans. That's next. It'll give you some kinda practical understanding of God and of theology, but it'll also give you practical practical ways to go forward. So the Roman road points out that we all have a problem and it points out the solution for the problem. The first two steps is what I'm gonna cover today, and then we'll go to communion.

Step one. And there's a lot more to this. The big book of Alcoholics Anonymous is where this was first published. It's first practiced by just a few people who struggle with the same sin. It helps if you can find somebody who struggles with the same sin that you do.

And when God is setting you free, you encourage one another to come through it and come out the other side. So there are lots of other programs out there. Most of them recognize that the spiritual solution of the 12 steps is really helpful. So step one is this, we admitted that we were powerless over our problem, whatever that problem is. Specifically in Alcoholics Anonymous, it says over alcohol.

There are others over sexual addiction, over narcotics, over whatever. But whatever yours is, we admitted that we were powerless over our problem and that our lives had become unmanageable. For people who wanna be in charge and be in control, that's hard. That but it is the first step, you know, knowing that you have a problem is first step to solving that problem. I don't want for us as a church, as a people, or as an individual, I don't want for you to sit there and go, duh.

Yeah. Whatever. No. But I'm saved. I walked out.

I did the thing. Yeah. I believe you. But but do you believe that you're absolutely free from all sin? If there's anything that's left and if you don't think that, there's some stuff left.

Okay? If you get to the place of admitting that, hey, I've tried over and over and over to quit googling this sort of stuff. I've tried over and over to stop this thing that I do. I've tried over and over, and for some reason, it just keeps getting worse. My life has become unmanageable.

All I think about is that thing. This is really powerful. It's really helpful to get to the place of going, I can't do this. And then there's a black slide. And then the next step is immediately, since I can't do this and what do we call God?

The Almighty. So I'm not the Almighty. I'm pretty weak and feeble. Even even strong as I think I am, I'm still pretty weak and feeble. There are things that I wouldn't even dream of being able to do that I know God can do.

So step two is, we came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Is anything impossible for God? What we know of God is that he resists the proud who think they've got it all together, and he gives grace to the humble who admit that they have a problem that they can't do anything about. We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves and if you see that and say, why don't they just say Jesus? Because a lot of people have had a bad experience with Christians, and a lot of people have bad experience with church or with Allah and mosques, and a lot of people have had a lot of bad experiences to open ourselves up, to admit our flaws and our faults, and to say, God, I don't understand you is a statement of humility to the level that I do understand you is the next step.

We'll get to that next week. But for this, we came to believe that a power greater than ourselves, the Almighty could restore it's possible for him to restore us to sanity because nothing is impossible with God. We'll get to the rest of the steps next week or we'll get to a couple more of the steps next week probably. There is a way out. God is the way out.

I have some if you're like, oh, I'm already through one and two. I have the rest of them up here. Okay. Cheat sheet. Here they are.

Spoiler alert. But I think it would do us all a service. Like I started to say, about six and a half years ago, I had a friend come and said, I I got a problem. I got a problem. Never been willing to admit it before, always thought I could stop.

Could stop for a while, but hadn't been able to lately. And I'm I'm broken. I can't I can't do it. I knew about the big book, but I had never read it myself. I knew it worked, but I didn't have the alcohol wasn't my problem, so I never read that.

And so I said, I tell you what I'm gonna do. I mean, I know I overeat. Is that close enough? I know I have this issue. I'm gonna link that with with with yours, and I'm gonna pray about you every time I'm tempted.

Right? And I'm gonna try to walk with it through, but I'm gonna read that book too. So that friend started reading the book. I started reading the book and I was like, dang, this is really good. This is really biblical.

I've got a book in my office or my truck that says, the good book and the big book or the big book and the good book. So it's got all of the underpinning stuff if you need that because you've in church your whole life and you need it. But the good thing about it is, God says that everyone who calls on him will be saved. Right? He's he's laying it out there.

He's putting the cookies on the bottom shelf. He's saying, you can. You can. You can. But you have to trust me and not yourself.

And so what we're doing in communion this is where we're headed. What we're doing in communion is that old covenant where it was all on us was us pulling ourselves up by by our bootstraps. The law shows us how we fail and it has no power to make us right with God. It has no power to to forgive sin. It has the power to help us recognize sin, recognize our problem.

And Jesus is saying in this, he's saying, you know how that old covenant goes. God's gracious and he's merciful and he gave you some stuff to do, but all that stuff, all of that sacrifice, all that stuff that he gave you to do that actually comes to our brains pretty naturally. What what do I have to do? What do I have to do? Do?

Christ do have did it. He fulfilled it. And so we have to accept that and it takes it takes utter humility to do that. Now, I'm thankful for having the experience with Ron. I'm thankful for having the experience with my friend that I mentioned.

And since then, I've had a couple of folks that that we've we've gone and we've tried and we've done this. We've been to rehab four or five times. And eventually, they didn't get over it because they never got to the place of I've got a problem really that I can't do anything about. All of it was human effort in trying to do it. So old covenant was God's direction towards the new.

It was saying, I've made I I have made the provision. For those who were before Jesus, they had to look forward to Messiah because it's by Christ's blood that anyone who ever gets saved is saved. Okay? Beforehand, just the same way that we have to look back to that blood, they had to look forward to that blood. As we go into it, I'm gonna invite the ushers elders actually, elders to come forward.

And, Belisa, would you play something pretty? Oh, I knock stuff over. And would y'all just pray with me? God, I pray that you, by your spirit, would move in a mighty, mighty way to convict us of our sin, our problem that we honestly can't do anything about if we're straight up honest with you. Would you convict us of our personal sin?

I know that when Isaiah was overcome by your presence, Lord, in the temple, he immediately fell on his face and says, woe is me, I am undone. I'm a man of unclean lips and I dwell amongst the people of unclean lips. His personal sin came about when he came into your presence. So that first step of recognizing it, Lord, I pray that you would reveal it to us by your spirit like you said that you would in that upper room. And Lord, I pray that you would also comfort us that you can restore our lives to wholeness and sanity.

You can restore broken relationships. You can restore peace in our heart. Everything else is counterfeit, counterfeit, Lord. Everything else is a counterfeit. We're looking for your peace, your comfort, your love.

We're looking for you to save us from ourselves. So at this table, upper room discourse, they just heard that and you said what you said about coming together and taking this in. I pray lord that you'd bless the continuation of that that's here today. It's an open table for anyone who's ever put their trust in you, who's ever admitted in humility their problem and look to you for their salvation and solution, for their cure. Lord God almighty, I pray that each one that partakes would be blessed with it, feel your presence in a new way, more profound, deeper way than we ever had before.

Lord God Almighty, I pray that you'd bless this little cracker representative of the body of Christ. He walked it out in the flesh, perfect record available to all who would put their trust in him. Thank you, Lord, for Jesus. Amen. On the same night that Jesus was betrayed, just that opening right there, on the same night that he was betrayed.

Human frailty, human ambition, human motivation. On the same night that Jesus was betrayed, he took bread after supper, after he'd blessed it, after he'd given thanks, he took bread after supper and he said to his disciples there, this is my body which is given for you. Take this, take it in, and do it in remembrance of me. Thank you, God Almighty, that you made provision while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Lord God Almighty, thank you for that perfect life that was well lived as an example, but also as a perfect record that could be shared with anyone who put their trust in him.

Lord, we ask for your blessing on this this cup, this representative sample. It's a little plastic cup of grape juice, but it's representative of the blood, innocent blood that was shed by Christ on Calvary voluntarily, sacrificially. Every one of the sacrifices prior to that had pointed to this. It's the all sufficient sacrifice once for all. Thank you for the sacrifice of Jesus' blood.

Amen. In the same manner they had taken the bread, he also took the cup and he said to them there, and he says to us today, this is the new covenant in my blood. Thank you, Lord God Almighty, that you made provision, that you made a way. This is the new covenant in my blood. Take it, drink of it as you will, whenever you will in remembrance of me.

Amen. Would you stand with me and we're gonna sing the doxology. Would you hit a g so I don't start off way low? Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise God all creatures here below.

Praise him above ye heavenly host. Praise father, son, and holy host. Amen. Would you go in the peace of God, our savior, and would you be a carrier of that to anyone in need? Amen.