Floods and Foundations – Luke part 19 – Grant Vissers

Good morning, good morning. This is a great, this is a great

Sunday. I love that in the first year

that we've been here, there are so many first Sundays of new

things that we get to experience.

And today is one of those days. So I'm I'm pumped to be here and

to celebrate with our grads and to see all of the blood.

They're stacked right there. I don't know if you've come and

checked them out yet, but the blankets are there, they're

waiting, they're ready for you. And so it is, it's a wonderful

day. So welcome, if you are new, if

you're visiting, if you are a guest, I love that you would

show up on a day like today because in so many different

ways. I think you get to see a little

bit about who we are as a church and what is important.

And there's cake. That's always a good day to show

up. It's like the most ice.

I say. It's like the most Presbyterian

thing we do is have big slab cakes at the end of important

Sundays like this. But it is, this is a great day.

And it is a day that we get to pray for and bless and send our

grads off onto their next whatever it is into work into

school. We just love that we get to do

that and we will celebrate communion today.

And right now what we're going to do is if you're brand new to

church, open up the Bible, read for a little bit to pray

together and spend some time reflecting on on Jesus's

teaching. So we are in Luke chapter 6.

Luke 6 · chapter mention

And eventually it'll be up on the board behind me here up on

the overheads. But what I want to do is just

kind of slow us down prey. And then read through this these

verses together, verse 43. If you do want to follow along

chapter 6, verse 43 through to the end of the chapter and we'll

get into some of this. But what you need to know if you

are flying in new to where we have been is something called

the sermon on the plane. This is Jesus's teaching about

life inside the Kingdom and these verses wrap up that

teaching. So we've spent now a month

looking at various teachings on what Jesus invites us into and

what he challenges us toward as the church as followers of Jesus

together as a community and here this kind of this wraps it all

up. We are going to get to a point

where he finally says, OK, now go and do you spend enough time

sitting and listening here and now go and kind of get after it

is is how it ends. But let me pray.

I want to read these verses for us, and then we'll work our way

through. God, thanks for your love and

for your grace. Thanks that you're with us, and

we're grateful that you have something for each one of us,

whether we are brand new to the Bible and Jesus, to who you are

and to your teaching, whether we have been around for what might

be 30, forty, 50-60 years and beyond.

God thinks that you are one who continues to reveal these new

things to us that stir our hearts and our minds toward you

and toward action in the world. God, I pray that that's what you

would do today for us as a church, as a community.

Would you remind us what life is all about?

So as we read this, speak to us now.

We need you to do it. Pray these things in Jesus your

strong name, man. So Luke 6 starting at 43, says,

For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree

bear good fruit. For each tree is known by its

fruit. For figs are not gathered from

thornbushes, nor are grapes picked from a Bramble Bush.

The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces

good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil.

For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.

Why do you call me Lord? Lord, and do not and and not do?

Sorry what I tell you, Everyone who comes to me and hears my

words and does them, I will show you what he is like.

He is like a man building a house who dug deep and laid the

foundation on the rock. And when the flood arose, the

stream broke against that house and could not shake it because

it had been well built. But the one who hears and does

not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground

without a foundation. When the stream broke against

it, immediately it fell and the ruin of that house was great.

So we have two images or two analogies, 2 stories to wrap up

Jesus sermon on the plane. So on the one hand, we get this

image of a tree and its fruit. The second image, the house and

its foundation. And really what I want us to

hear and especially for those of us who've been working our way

through all the way through the sermon on the plane and maybe

longer all the way through this Gospel of Luke.

And for those of you who I know been coming out on Wednesday to

Bible study like this serves as the conclusion.

The final point to Jesus is teaching about life inside the

Kingdom of God. Jesus is going to continue to

teach about what life is like outside the Kingdom.

He is going to continue to live it out, to show it, demonstrate

through healings and miracles. He is going to clash with

religious teachers and other people.

All of it is going to continue to unfold what the Kingdom looks

like. But this really wraps up this,

this teaching that we call the sermon on the plane and the

sermon on the plane, What we've been focusing on through this

whole month is living in alignment with God's Kingdom.

What does it look like to live inside of God's Kingdom?

What does it look like to live on the way as you go, aligning

all of the areas of your life with the Kingdom of God, all of

it. Not compartmentalizing, not

leaving some pieces out because I'd rather keep this, you know,

over here and I'd rather keep my church life over here and

looking at together, What does it look like as a whole

integrated life, not disintegrated like we talked

about last week, integrated into the Kingdom of God.

One of the things that we have said from the beginning of this

series is that living inside of alignment with God's Kingdom

will put you at odds with other kingdoms and alternate kings.

And I don't know if you felt that over these last few weeks

that some of the things that Jesus challenges us toward

starts to feel like it impinges or encroaches on other areas,

other kingdoms, other kings, other things that try to

influence your life. God's Kingdom clashes, and it

clashes with our kingdoms, with my Kingdom, like so many times.

Our wants, our desire is what we would rather prioritize and

elevate and what we would even begin to worship is confronted

by God's Kingdom. Mark Sayers, and I've quoted him

before, he puts it like this. He says we can tend to once the

Kingdom, all of the goodness of life inside the Kingdom without

the king. Secularism.

I think our cultural moment, the driving ethos and Canada today

will take that a step further and actually declare that you

are your own king, of your own Kingdom, and that the best thing

you can do is to be true to yourself.

Jesus though says you were made for more then worshipping

yourself and simply living to serve your own passions.

And So what have we seen? We've seen Jesus declare blessed

are you who are upside down, And it's a little confusing.

Poor blessed are you who are poor, who are hungry, who mourn,

who are excluded, who are hated. He says on account of me, on

account of Jesus. And he's challenged us to live a

little bit upside down, to love our enemies and to pray for

those who hate us. To lend without expecting

anything in return, expecting to even be repaid.

To forgive. Not only to forgive, but to give

an extra measure of grace, He says, go further.

Be generous to live so generously, he says, that

actually it can't really be measured accurately anyway.

Live authentically with integrity.

Follow Jesus as the only teacher and master the King of God's

Kingdom. All of that we see wrapped up

today. So we continue reading or read

again. For no good tree bears bad

fruit. No good tree bears bad fruit and

organ does a bad tree bear good fruit.

For each tree is known by its own fruit.

And one of the things that I hope that you begin to do and I

hope we begin to do as a church, and this is not in my manuscript

and this is an in doing this is helpful because you get to see

it. I'm a really visual learner, so

it actually helps me as well, selfishly a little bit.

But one of the things I hope that it encourages you to do is

actually write some of this down inside your own Bible.

Each tree is known by its own fruit.

That's a great one to highlight for figs are not gathered from

thornbushes, nor are grapes picked from a Bramble Bush.

The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces

good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil.

For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.

Now, I don't know if you know this or not, but this is a

grapefruit tree. This this is a grapefruit tree.

And you would know that if you came around to this side.

It says grapefruit on it. That's about the only way you

would be able to tell it's a grapefruit.

You know, it's a grapefruit tree and I understand probably there

are some of you here who might be able to identify this as a

grapefruit tree if you looked closely.

I'm not one of them. I had to double check, but we

got a fig tree outside and a grapefruit tree and all they

listen. I'm glad it says grapefruit

because they could be the same one.

To me. There isn't about the same state

of health as well. It needs two people.

I had two people today. I was bringing this in this

morning ahead of time, like most of you were not here yet.

I had two people say that tree needs prayer.

Two separate people, different ends of the building.

It does. It absolutely does.

It is not bearing fruit. Not only is it not bearing bad

fruit, it's just not bearing fruit, period.

Which, you know, yeah, part of the point.

But here's the thing. This could be, I could tell you

this is an orange tree or a lemon tree.

I could tell you it's an orange or lemon tree.

And probably there's very little way for you to tell right now

because it's not bearing any fruit.

And hopefully eventually one day, if it's healthy and we ever

get out of this perpetual kind of like never, you know, never

spring, only fall kind of weather it might get enough sun

to begin to grow and eventually it'll bear fruit.

This is a great fruit tree and we will know that when it bears

grapefruit. I can't turn it into something

that it's not. It will bear fruit or it won't

bear fruit, that's for sure, based on its health and how well

we take care of it and how much sun he gets.

But it's only ever, at best, gonna produce grapefruits.

That's all it will produce. Don't get me started on broccoli

and cauliflower and Brussels sprouts and kale and cabbage,

because apparently they're all somehow the same plant.

We're not gonna talk about that. You get the point.

A fig won't bear the fruit of a grapefruit tree.

It isn't going to, like, spontaneously change into

something that it isn't. It's not going to just

miraculously change. Equally.

Like no matter how hard I try and water it and tend for it and

care for it and give it food, like there's no amount of

selective breeding or training or watering or magic plant food

that I can put onto this tree to turn it into something that it's

not, to make it bear fruit that it is not designed to bear.

And Jesus says for each tree is known by its own fruit, each

tree is known by its own fruit. The fruit, Jesus says, betrays

the tree. Good or bad, healthy or rotten,

edible or poisonous, little or big, the fruit allows you to

know. The tree and what you produce

allows you to clearly see and know who and what you are, the

state of your heart. Now, I don't know about you, but

I immediately read these lines and I begin asking questions.

And they're good questions, but they can be a little bit

misleading at points. What fruit am I bearing?

How do I bear good fruit and and what is a good tree and what is

bad fruit anyways? What does it mean to bear bad

fruit and how about good fruit? What does that look like and how

do I see it in my own life? Where do I see it?

How can I know I'm producing good fruit and not bad fruit?

Am I good or am I bad? Where is there sin in my life?

How can I overcome it? How can I stop doing the thing

that I no longer want to do but somehow always find myself

returning to? And I think what ends up

happening is that at best we think that the input determines

the output. Like if I maybe if I read my

Bible enough, like is that is that good fruit?

If I go to church enough, if I pray enough times or the right

words in the right way at the right time, if I listen to only

good music, how? If I only watch good movies and

TV shows like all that I consume, if everything that I

input into my life is good, then then maybe I will be good.

Also. If I consume enough good things,

surely then I eventually will be like those things.

I will be good. And yes, what you put in

matters. What you input into your life

matters. Anybody who's accidentally put

diesel into a gasoline vehicle will tell you that it matters.

The input matters, but the problem I think that we can have

and I, I think we, Christian or not, inside the church,

wrestling with faith, doubt, wondering about any of it, all

of it, all of us, is that we can put all our emphasis on the

fruit, good or bad, Everything becomes about the fruit.

Am I producing good fruit or am I producing bad fruit?

How do I stop the bad fruit? How do I focus on it enough to

get it out of my life? And how do I just begin doing

good things? And maybe even as I'm going to

take that bad thing and I will stop and I'm going to replace it

with a good thing and I go look, great things to think about and

do. But the problem with it, Jesus

says, I think, is this. You're only focusing still on

external things, the good and the bad that you do, and not

getting at the heart of who you really are.

The problem when we emphasize the fruit is that we never get

to the deeper heart work that Jesus wants to do in our lives.

All our energy becomes focused on what is external.

And Jesus says no. Actually, the problem is

internal. It's inside, and no amount of

outside work is going to transform what is going on

inside your heart and your mind and your soul.

You can call it behavior modification or like Country

Club, Christianity or legalism. Some people could just call it

religion. Dallas Willard calls it the

Gospel of Sin management, right? How can I manage my sin enough

to feel good about who I am? The gospel is reduced to only

stopping me from sinning. That's the gospel of sin

management. When the gospel, when who Jesus

is, the cross, death, resurrection, all of it is only

ever about stopping you from doing what you ought not to do.

And when it becomes that, it falls so short of explaining all

of life inside the Kingdom. Because again, humanity's

problem is not external, it's internal.

No amount of input is going to change what is inside to you,

who you are. That requires a change of heart.

Crispy, bad fruit and a bad fruit.

Anyways, we'll get there. Just as good as out of the good

treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of

his evil treasure produces evil. This word is is fantastic.

This is in Greek is thesaurus. It's the same word that we use

for a thesaurus because it is a treasury of words.

It is a storehouse of words and what Jesus really is saying is

think treasury, think storehouse.

Think of the the place you store away what is most important.

I don't know who thought words were most important, but maybe

they are. It's the the place where you

keep your treasure. What is most important to you?

And so I think one of the questions that you need to ask

of yourself and that I need to ask of myself and even for us as

a church, is, is Christianity just a behavior modification

program for you? Is it just about making you a

better person or is it something that you are learning to

treasure? Is Jesus someone who just simply

makes you a better person and makes you feel better about who

you are and what one of my profs and and Connie's props and

seminary called moralistic therapeutic deism.

This idea that it just, it makes Christianity makes you a better

person, it makes you moral, it makes you do good so you can

feel good. It's therapeutic.

It makes you feel good about yourself.

D As in belief in God, Is Christianity something that you

come to because you realize deep inside of who you are that that

there are some things that you're wrestling out and there

are some pieces that you are actually feeling kind of guilty

about and maybe even a little ashamed of.

You know that there's something that you need fixed.

You come to Jesus and and you feel a little better about

yourself on on Sunday and then go back and do the same thing on

Monday. That's moralistic therapeutic

deism. I'm going to feel good about

myself so I can continue doing the things I know I shouldn't

do. Or have you learned to treasure

Jesus and to treasure life inside the Kingdom because it is

valuable and life giving, not just for you?

But through you, for others around you, is it something that

you have embraced? Has your heart, your thoughts,

your feelings, your emotions to all of it?

Has it been impacted by who Jesus is and by the life that He

invites you to live? It's a treasure of this person's

heart. So again, that word heart is not

just like the thump, thump, thump keep you alive, pump blood

through your body kind of heart. This is all of your life.

This is your thoughts, your emotions, your feelings, your

desire, your will, all of it. The invitation to life inside

the Kingdom is to allow Jesus to capture all of it.

All of your thoughts, all of your feelings, your emotions,

your desire, everything about who you are, the centre of your

being, your core, your soul, your spirit, all of these words

that we've developed to try to capture who God has created you,

human being to be. Has God gotten ahold of it all?

And have you learned? Are you learning to treasure

that God has gotten ahold of it all.

In another conversation that Jesus has, he actually has with

a rich young man that says this rich man comes to Jesus and he

calls Jesus a good teacher. And Jesus's response is is

great. He says, why do you call me

good? No one is good except God alone.

No one is good. And then Jesus says, listen,

like this this guy comes, he said, what must I do to inherit

eternal life? This is this is the question

that this man comes to Jesus with Jesus answers, says, well,

listen, you know the the commandments, so you know the

committee, do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal,

do not bear false witness. Don't defraud on your father and

mother. And then the rich man who turns

to Jesus says, great, check, check, check, check, check.

I've done them all, I've accomplished everything it says.

What else must I do? Is there something that I still

lack? Feel pretty good about himself

at this moment. And Jesus looks at him and he

says, yeah, you, you're missing out on one thing.

He says go and sell all that you have and give to the poor.

And then he says you will have treasure in heaven, Come follow

me. That's the invitation that Jesus

gives to this rich man. And the guy goes away sad,

actually says sorrowful, like stricken with grief because he

had a lot of things. And we don't hear again from

this guy. We don't know what happens to

him. Does he sell everything?

Does he not? We don't know.

But he goes away sad. Jesus doesn't.

He's not giving him another box to check.

He's not saying literally just listen, go.

I mean, I think he is literally saying go and sell everything.

He's not saying just go and sell everything and then check you've

checked the box. Now he says go sell everything,

give it away, abandon all and come follow me.

So this guy, he knows the commandments, he knows the

external fruit, right? He he knows what he ought to do,

but Jesus says sell all that you have treasure the things of

heaven and come and follow me and the rich guy, I think he

goes away sad, not because he had too much stuff to sell, but

because he wanted that I said that easy answer.

He wanted Jesus to tell him that final check box.

He's like, once you get this, you're in check everything go

back to living your life the way you want.

Jesus says, listen, no amount of good input or good output is

going to change your heart. Only Jesus can change your

heart. He says essentially this, this

rich young man, your heart is not good.

You don't treasure the things that I treasure.

You don't treasure the things of the Kingdom.

Only Jesus can change what's going on inside your life.

And the question I think that we need to ask ourselves is, are

we, Am I willing to leave everything behind and follow

Jesus because I am learning to love him and treasure life

inside the Kingdom? Not because it makes me a better

person. Not because your spouse drag you

to church. Not because of what you can

gain. Not so that you can feel better

about yourself and the decisions that you make.

Find forgiveness, but then continue to do the same things

over and over again because because you have been caught,

your heart has been captured by who Jesus is in Psalm 1.

And we began this series, this short study on the sermon on the

plane, by reading from Psalm 1. Psalm One says this, Blessed is

the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in

the way that sinners take, or sit in the company of mockers,

but whose delight is in the law of the Lord.

Do you delight in who God is and life inside the Kingdom, who

meditates on his latte and night?

That person, and this is what I want you to see, is like a tree

planted by streams of water. This word planted actually means

transplanted, and we've looked at this word before.

It's not just that this tree luckily landed beside the stream

of flowing water. This is a tree that has been

uprooted from the soil, the rock, the dirt, the muck, the

stuff of life that's preventing it to live, and has been

rerouted, repotted, transplanted, set down

intentionally beside the source of life, the streams of water.

That tree is going to yield its fruit in season, and its leaf is

not going to wither. And whatever it does, it's going

to prosper. And to your right says that's

the work that God needs to do in your life.

That's the work that needs to happen inside of your heart and

your soul and your mind, all of who you are.

You need to be transplanted, uprooted, and then placed down

beside the source of life, inside of life in the Kingdom

with Jesus says no amount of hard work, no amount of good is

going to change the fact that grapes don't grow on

thornbushes. You won't find oranges on

hostas. And to your right says you need

a complete change of heart. And that's the work that God

needs to do in your life and in my life to transplant, pick you

up, take you out of the rock and place you down away from the

unworkable dead soil and into next to flowing streams of

water. Jesus elsewhere.

And I realize now we're like dangerously close to mixing

metaphors in another place. Puts it like this.

He says abide in me. This is Jesus's invitation.

Abide in me and allow me to abide in you.

As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in

the vine, neither can you unless you abide in Me.

I am the vine, you are the branches.

Whoever abides in me and I in Him, He is the one who bears

much fruit. Apart from me, Jesus says, you

can do nothing. Abide, Jesus says in me, rest

in, enjoy, celebrate, drink deeply from the well that is

Jesus's presence and you will bear good fruit.

To wrap up, Jesus says, why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do

not do what I tell you? Everyone who comes to me and

hears my words here, God hears my words and does them.

I will show you what he is like. He is like a man building a

house who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock, and when

a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not

shake it because it had been well built.

But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who

built a house on the ground without a foundation.

When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the

ruin of that house was great. Great was the ruin of their

translations. Right?

When Connie and I were first married, we lived in Beaverton,

ON. Does anybody know where

Beaverton ON is? A couple of you think Yes, right

on. More specifically, we lived in

Lagoon City. Does anybody know where Lagoon

City is? Yes, OK, a couple right on

Lagoon City. That should raise alarm bells

because I'm not sure if you are aware of this or not, but

Ontario is not known for its lush, calm, soothing lagoons.

Not Lagoon City is a product of a hopefully bygone era where we

thought it would be great to construct houses on top of Lake

Ontario. Like not beside on top of on

stilts. Some of them Lake Ontario.

I don't think they do that anymore.

You can think Florida, but not alright.

So one day we were living in this house.

We're renting it and we were there for like we actually had

the house less than your room Beaverton for a year.

So we were just married. It was our first year of

marriage. We hear this loud pop crack,

flash fizz like that was the sound and then the power went

out. That was it gone dark power was

out this loud crack, pop, fizz, bang this like what do you do?

So like I checked all the things that you're supposed to do

planned outage. No, are there any storms?

Look outside. No, no storms go down to the

panel. Nothing was blown Great.

That's not going to help at all. So couldn't reset any Breakers.

Nothing like nothing was wrong, except everything was wrong.

Finally, I went outside and like, I'm going to call the

landlord because I, I, I don't know what else to do, can't fix

this and the power company won't deal with me because I don't own

the place we're renting it. And so I walk outside and I kid

you not, you could see that the house had sunk and the main

power line that fed the house came through.

The ground had ripped because the house had sunk enough

because it was built on top of Lake Ontario.

And so finally the like landlord is like, OK, I'll call the cut

power company and then you can call the power company.

I was on the phone finally with the power company.

They would talk to me. And the craziest thing I've got

like the landlord on the phone, I've got the power company on

the phone. I've got the property manager on

the phone and like, Oh, yeah, that happens.

Like, this was a known problem in Lagoon City.

The houses are just slowly sinking into the lake.

And that's something we all have to deal with eventually.

Like, I didn't realize that they knew I wanted to read them.

Haven't you heard about the one who doesn't do the thing and

builds the house on the ground with no foundation?

And the great is the ruin of that house.

Like that's what it felt like. Jesus says, why do you call me

Lord? Lord, whenever something's

repeated in the Bible, you need to pay attention to it.

No exclamation marks, OK, in the Bible.

So if things are repeated, just sit up a little bit.

Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do what I tell you.

This is Jesus's final. This is like last thing He wants

you to hear from this teaching, from this sermon on the plane.

You have now heard it. Jesus says you've heard it.

You can't say you haven't. Are you going to listen?

Are you gonna embrace? Are you gonna absorb?

Are you going to do? Will it change the way you live,

or will you hear it and listen and continue to do what you want

to do? Action matters to Jesus.

It does. The way you live matters to

Jesus. The way we live as a community,

as a church, matters to Jesus, but the order of it matters more

the way you live and follow. Yes, absolutely.

This is Jesus's invitation. He says Come, follow me.

Learn the way of the Kingdom. Allow Jesus to transform your

heart. Learn what it looks like to

treasure the things of the Kingdom.

Learn what a new posture might be like toward others.

And then Jesus eventually does say go do the things, do the

work of the Kingdom, allow it to change the way you live.

It's OK to live differently because of the teaching of Jesus

that you've encountered, he says.

Carry the culture of the Kingdom with you as you go, But go,

there's a time, there's a season.

Everybody's like you just, you know, your kids, they grow up.

This is so they tell me they're growing up fast.

Ours are growing fast. And then, you know, eventually

there's like, there's a moment where you're like, go, go and

live your life. You've learned the things.

I'll be here, but it's time for you to actually start changing

the way you live. The questions you says isn't of

whether or not there's gonna be storms in life or what those

storms are going to be or how high does the flood rise?

Or is it, you know, because of rain?

Or is it a dam that bursts? Like, am I ready for the storm?

Can I survive three days with no power?

Or how about like a week of food, like, you know, have stuff

stored away. The House doesn't really care

what causes the storm, but the storm will come.

Life will happen. Rain, flash flood, dam bursts.

The result is the same Jesus as if the foundation is bad if

you've heard and not done. The result is the same.

If the foundation is good, if you've heard and allowed it to

transform your life and your heart and your mind and your

soul, all of it, and then live differently because of it, you

are building a house. You're building a life, and like

students graduate in grade 12, you might not have had it all

figured out yet. You're not supposed to have it

all figured out yet, but you're building towards something.

All of us are. And one day we're going to face

a flood. One day you'll leave a legacy.

One day you'll no longer be here.

Maybe your kids, your grandkids will.

One day it'll show whether you've built on a foundation or

on no foundation. And so the choice you have is to

Orient it all, all of it, all of life around who Jesus is.

Not because it's going to prevent storms, not because I

can guarantee you that life from here on out, like it's going to

be absolutely perfect all the way through.

It won't be, but because you love Jesus and your heart's been

captured by who He is, and you want to live your life aligned

with His Kingdom, and you want to live your life toward others

in the ways of the Kingdom, generously, with love and

kindness and compassion. Grace overflowing.

Let's pray. God thanks for your love and for

your grace and things that you do.

Invite us to these places of surrender, these places of

decision, these places where we do need to think, probably for

longer than just a moment, about how we are choosing to live our

lives. And so, yeah, I do pray that for

each of us here, you would allow us to do that.

I pray that you would remind us out of your love and generosity,

your graciousness toward us. I pray that you would remind us

of who you are and whose we are, that we belong to you.

I pray that you would remind us that we're deeply loved and from

that place too. God, I pray that you would

convict us and challenge us and capture our hearts and our

minds. Yeah.

For the person here who's been wrestling with who you are and

life inside the Kingdom or not, with faith and doubt, with a

desire to believe or a desire not to believe, I do pray that

you would do the work that only you can do, which is to capture

our hearts. Speak to us, have revealed to us

the fact that we need you and remind us that when we come,

you're waiting. God, as we turn to celebrate

communion in real, tangible, practical ways, taste and see,

would you allow us to know your goodness and your grace today?

In Jesus name I pray. Oh man.