Returning To The Table!

You're listening to the Cross Kingdom Sermon of the Week.

We helped you enjoyed this message from Justin Carmon here.

All right, hey, y'all, just a friendly reminder. If you

were here Friday night and you got your pledge card

and you're making a commitment towards the building fund, please

put the pledge card with the first donation, and I

think these will fit in that box. Also for those

of you that have no idea what I just said,

because you weren't here Friday night at the dinner, we

had a legacy dinner and casting vision and looking over

the last eight and a half years and where we are,

where we're headed, reviewed this past year. There's a bunch

of these cards out there, so y'all grab them. And

this is something this was your idea, right, the seed thing. Okay,

So there's also seeds out there there, And on the

back of this seed and the and the church is

the address to the property, the land and the gate code.

And we want to encourage all to go out there

and pray and plant these white wildflower seeds in the

ground there, and so we want to saturate that land.

Oh it's a this is not Okay, people, it is

lit up up here. Oh, I mean it's okay. I

just am trying to talk. Oh man. Note to self,

I said this a couple of times privately. I was.

I worked out with Chris Coother yesterday and we did

twenty one sets for arms and I was not thinking

about playing drums for hours the next day. My arms

are a tad bit fried right now. And uh and

my core is coring. It's not I'll tell you what.

It's not easy. Okay. So man, I didn't even start.

It's not that bad. Now it's his turn. So you know,

earlier this year, what we're only three weeks into the year.

But at the beginning of the year we talked about

this year standing in the gap, going deep, putting more

of an emphasis on intercession, U prayer obviously, and also

the issue of communion. Who it's gonna be Like Rt. Kendall,

he was in Toronto and we got up there and

stood for thirty minutes and couldn't talk. Y'all, are like,

it's about time. We've been praying for that, justin. But

this issue of communion has really been on our hearts

as a leadership, and it's really been on my heart.

And you know, we announced that we were going to

start doing communion corporately every week, and the Lord's doing

something with this. It's also interesting to find out that

in the Catholic Church right now, this is the year

of revival of the Eucharis, and so throughout denominations, the

Lord is doing something almost with a a reintroduction of communion.

And if y'all are taking notes, I've titled this returning

to the Table, and we're going to go through the

Lord's table, and we're going to go through the different

perspectives of communion, and we're going to land this thing

taking corporate communion, and we actually have fresh, real bread

cut up. We actually have fresh bread cut out. Great Jesus,

not y'all. They did use real wine for a long

while time, and then denominations begin to switch over to

grape juice because of you know, people that have struggled

with addiction to alcohol and stuff. So don't worry, there's

no alcohol in the grapes. This is freshly squeezed organic

maybe all right. So in First Corinthians ten twenty one

it says you cannot drink the cup of the Lord

and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the

table of the Lord and the table of demons. Y'all

realize that when you read scripture, it is written for believers.

It's written to the church saying do not commune at

the table of demons. Because the Corinthians were getting drunk.

They were guilty of being drunk at communion. They were overeating,

they were overlooking other people that didn't have food, and

Paul is bringing this rebuke to them and saying, don't

you have houses to drink and eat in? And literally

they were bringing judgment on themselves, this violation vertically and

horizontally of not observing the Lord's body. Because you see

both aspects in this where Paul is talking. So when

we look at each other, you have to understand that

you're the body of Christ. There's the body of Christ,

and then there's the horizontal body of Christ. And they

were coming together and literally bringing judgment on themselves. Now,

a couple of things. The younger generation is moving towards

liturgical worship and traditional styles of worship, and the main

focus of that when you talk to them and look

at the statistics, is actually communion. And there's been a

frustration with the evangelic like the younger people with just

you know, Western Church, if you will. And I'm not

just saying it's just us, but that there's been a

loss of the fear of the Lord in reverence for communion.

I don't want to get ahead of myself. But in

Exodus twenty four nine to eleven, it says, then Moses

and Aaron, Nadab and abaie Whu and the seventy and

seventy of the elders of Israel went up, and they

saw the God of Israel. There was under his feet,

as it were, a pavement of sapphire stone, like the

very heaven, for cleanness or clearness. And he did not

lay his hand on the chief men of the people

of Israel. What is that saying God didn't kill him.

They actually saw the God of Israel. They beheld God

and ate and drank. They were at the table with

the King of the universe, the one who literally could

just have a thought. I wonder what it would be

like if Justin didn't never existed, and boom, just his thought,

I could vanish before your eyes and you'd never know me,

no jokes. And they're there at the table of the Lord.

And as you see this theme of the of the

Lord's table, you see it from the very beginning all

the way through the scriptures. You see communion being done

by Abraham with Melkezedek, and actually the introduction of the

tithe long before the law. So for people that want

to squirm and get out of the tithe and do

self directed giving, it's not biblical. It's not under the law.

It was introduced before the law that was free. If

you're wondering and he's he's literally eating with the elders,

and then what did they do. They turned around and

built a golden calf. Just because you have an encounter,

a dream, a vision, even a visitation of the Lord,

does not guarantee your longevity with him. It doesn't guarantee

just because you have encounters. It may point to a gift,

but it does not guarantee your perseverance. When it says,

if anybody wants to follow me, let him take up

his cross daily and follow me. It says, if you stand,

take heed lest you fall. Don't let pride come in

the way to grow with favor, in favor with God

and with man. Number one is humility, and it's in

the Proverbs. It says it clearly, that's how you grow

in favor. So when you see Daniel and you see

Jesus growing in favor and stature with God and man,

it's because of their humility. When you see Moses being

I gotta go over here, being taught face to face,

it was this humility and humility is lacking in the

body of Christ today. But God's fixing that. He's dealing

with the church, He's dealing with his leaders. Anybody figured

that out. Listen, y'all, I love you. This is not

a time to have wilful rebellion in your life, because

He will deal with you publicly if he has to.

And that's because he's a good father. See. I think

when the fear of the Lord returns, we're gonna be

able to see a whole lot more when it comes

to this issue of his manifest glory, because without the

fear of the Lord and his manifest glory, we're in

deep trouble now. Psalms twenty three to five says I'm

sorry Exodus twenty five thirty and you shall set the

bread of the presence on the table before me. Regularly.

I always have a hard time saying that word, maybe

I'd go to speech class. So you have the bread,

the show bread, the bread of his presence, that was

literally fresh bread every single day. You have this issue

of communion. Anybody ever wondered, like, who taught Abraham communion?

Was it Melkezedek? And where did he come from? We

would have known if the Hebrews had not been so dull,

he says concerning Melkezedek, which I believe Paul wrote Hebrews personally,

I have much to say, but you are hard at hearing.

By now. You should be eating the meat of the word,

but you're still on milk. Now, you prepare a table

before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint

my head with oil. My cup overflows, y'all. This theme

of the table is all through scripture, and God is

consistently from Genesis to Revelation inviting us to his table.

You got enemies, great, there's a table in front of them.

Sit down and then trust Him as they're all around you.

I like Lord of the Rings. You know the Battle

Brave Heart, You know movies like that, The Patriot, the Battlefield.

Every one of you are on a battlefield. You realize

that right, and when you're not abiding in Christ, then

you show up on the battlefield naked, no armor because

he's never mind, I don't need any illustrations. But he

is the armor. In Romans it says that he's that

the armor's what the armor of light. And Ephesians it

goes on. It talks about the breastplate. You see the

breastplate in the Old Covenant as the breastplate of judgment

with the priest, and then you see it as the

breastplate of righteousness, and then you see it referred to

as the breastplate of faith and love. And what does

that tell you? It tells you that if you want

to fortify your breastplate of righteousness, then you must increase

with faith and love. There's a table before you every

single day, a table of the Lord and a table

of demons. And we choose every single day what table

we're gonna pull up to Jesus as the passover Lamb,

it says that he's He was the manna that came

down from heaven. He was the water that came out

of the rock, He was the burning bush. He was

everything is a type and shadow pointing back to him

and him alone. And and what I love about this

issue of passover the very time, the very first time

they institute to pass over in Exodus twelve. Can you

imagine how sick and feeble and weak these people were

after being in bondage for four hundred and thirty years,

not getting everything they needed, and by this point they

were they were They had been pretty ticked off at

Moses because Pharaoh increased their workload and then pull said

you go get your own straw and made it harder

and harder. And these people are sick, diseases, feeble, and

all of a sudden after they observed passover. It says

that literally in Psalms one five thirty seven, he brought

them out with silver and gold, so they plundered their enemy,

and there was none feeble among his tribes. And you

see this issue of physical healing always tied in with

passover and with communion. And I wonder how often we

really think about healing when it comes to communion. And

I really wonder when we examine ourselves before communion, how

often we really think about the Lord's body meaning one another?

You know, there's it says that somewhere sick, some literally

died with this issue of communion because they were not

observing the Lord's body. I don't know where the line is,

because I know all of us have partaken in communion

before with probably a little crud in the corner, right,

maybe a little unforgiveness. But I know there's a clear

line and this new covenant. So maybe the Lord's not

always as easy to get along with as some preach.

Maybe he's not winking at our rebellion. Hezekiah in Second

Chronicles thirty the priests were in the situation where they

weren't even clean, that they were not ceremonially clean to

be able to do Passover, and yet they reinstituted passover.

And it says Hezekiah sent to all Israel and Judah,

and wrote letters also to Ephraim and Manassa, and they

should come to the House of the Lord at Jerusalem

to keep the passover to the Lord, the God of Israel.

For the King and his princes and all the assembly

in Jerusalem had taken counsel to keep the passover in

the second month, for they could not keep it at

the time because the priests had not consecrated themselves in

sufficient number. We're there today y'all, there's not enough leaders

in the Body of Christ right now in the United

States that are consecrated. We literally have church closures outnumbering

church plants three to one in this country right now.

I think I said this. I was in the nineties.

There was a really big buzzword deconstruction, and it's come

back around in recent recent times. And depending on your

definition of it, may not be bad. Right if you're

pulling down things that are deception, lies, vows, things of

that nature, I wholeheartedly agree with that. But I was

recently at a dinner table in December with some folks

and Bill Johnson was there and we were talking and

that term came up and Bill, if y'all ever hear

Bill preach, it's like Mike drop stuff. Bill pops his

head up, he goes, you can only deconstruct what you built,

and then puts his head back down and continues to eat.

And I was like, well, that'll preach. But there's a cry,

regardless of where people are in their spiritual journeys, there's

a cry for the authentic Gospel, for true spirituality for

His Kingdom, and it's stirring in the young and old

right now. People are fed up with religion. They're fed

up with denominational stuff that just brings division. And I

believe wholeheartedly one of the main things the Lord's doing

with refocusing us back to the Eucharists, the communion is

bringing unity in Christ cross denominational. Through communion, the younger

people are swarming to liturgical, traditional styles of worship right

now and then. And if you if you look at

the statistics, the number one reason for that is because

of communion, and because they have seen a lack of

reverence for communion. And yet throughout Church history, communion has

has been at the centerpiece and has been done weekly corporately,

not just every once in a while. That was good

justin it says, But they could not keep it at

the time because the priests had not consecrated themselves in

sufficient number, nor had the people assembled in Jerusalem, and

the plans it seemed right to the King and all

the assembly, so they decreed to make a proclamation throughout

all Israel from Bearsheba to Dan, that the people should

come and keep the Passover to the Lord, the God

of Israel at Jerusalem, for they had not kept it

as often as prescribed However, some men of Asher and

Manassah and Zebulon humbled themselves and came to Jerusalem. The

hand of God was also on Judah to give them

one heart to do with the king and the princes,

commanded by the word of the Lord. And many people

came together in Jerusalem to keep the feast of unloved

Bread in the second month, a very great assembly. And

I love this. Moving on, it says for Hezekiah had

prayed for them, saying, may the Good Lord pardon everyone

who sets his heart to seek God, the Lord, the

God his fathers, of his fathers, even though not according

to the sanctuary rules of cleanness. So he's like, listen,

we're not ceremonially clean, even though we're not. Lord, please

hear our prayer. And the Lord heard Hezekiah and healed

the people, y'all. When it says healing is the children's

bread by his stripes, we are healed. We were fighting

so much sickness right now. It ticks me off. Flu

and this, and then you have these stinking nut jobs

doing gain a function and weaponizing stuff forgot ruth hi, y'all,

I was having a moment there. Bear with me, but

I believe wholeheartedly. The Lord spoke to me a few

months ago and he said that you're gonna have to

have warfare for your health. So don't think that this

bio stuff good. The enemy came to steal, kill and destroy,

right Psalms ninety one. We talked about this a couple

of weeks ago, Dubar and kateb and that you have

the authority on the earth. Y'all, it's time to wake up.

This is not the time to go. Oh, Orange Man's

coming in on Monday. Everything will be fine, y'all. We've

got to pray now more than ever. Say I can

speaking code. We have to pray now more than ever.

That there's all sorts of chatter right now about more

attempts Monday. There's dreams and warnings, and we've got to pray.

It says, pray for your leaders so that you can

live a peaceful life, whether you whether any of us

like it, doesn't matter politicians or not. Were called to

pray for our leaders of our nation. And I'm not

afraid to talk about that. Some have you got a

problem with it, You still gotta love me. Get over it.

That's my pastoral smile. So this issue of healing. Listen,

when we pray your Kingdom come, your will be done,

we're saying that anything that's not in Heaven, we don't

want it on the earth. And we have been invited

to partner with bringing the Kingdom to earth. So that

means you don't need an angelic visitation to walk into

a situation. Anything you see that doesn't look like heaven,

there is your assignment period bring the Kingdom. But if

you're walking and you have more in common with the

e then you do. Jesus, You're not going to rebuke

a cold amen Ezra chapter six. And the elders of

the Jews built and prospered through the prophesying of Haggai

the prophet. Oh, don't even get me going on the

prophetic movement right now in the shambles, and how desperately

we need reformation. We've been talking about prophetic reformation for

years and it just y'all, Like, I mean, there was

just a podcast finally exposing Sean Bowles for his false

words of knowledge and looking at Facebook accounts and pulling

information off Facebook and then acting like it was a

word of knowledge for somebody in the church. Chris Reid

guilty of the same thing, along with adultery, and he

resigned from warning star. God is cleaning house. He is

dealing with his leadership and the body. He's dealing with us.

He's not coming back for some beat up bride. That's powerless.

That's saying, Oh, God, just get us out of here.

I want to be left behind. That's for another teaching.

And on the fourteenth day of the first month, they

returned exiles and kept the passover for the priest and

the Levites had purified themselves together. All of them were clean.

So they slaughtered the passover lamb for all returned exiles,

for their fellow priest, and for themselves. It was eaten

by the people of Israel who had returned from exile,

and also by everyone who had joined them and separated

himself from the uncleanness of the people of the land

to worship the Lord, the God of Israel. And they

kept the feast of unloving bread seven days, for the

Lord had made them joyful and had turned the heart

of the King of Assyria to them. Joy. It's legal.

It's legal to have joy. It's legal to have joy

in the church. It's actually legal to show that joy

on your face when you say, oh, I'm full of joy,

joy sheep, never mind Isaiah fifty three four to five.

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.

Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted.

But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised

for our iniquities. The chastisement for our peace was upon him,

and by his stripes we are healed. He paid for you, spirit, soul,

and body. He bought you you back, not just from sin,

but purchased you back to the original intent of Eden.

Do you understand me? He restored everything back to Eden,

not just dealt with your sin. His original intent was redeemed.

I'll let that sink in for you. So this issue

of communion Luke twenty two. And when the hour came,

he reclined at table in the apostles with him, and

he said to them, I have earnestly desired to eat

this passover with you before I suffer, For I tell

you I will not eat it until it is fulfilled

in the Kingdom of God. And he took a cup,

and when he had given thanks, he said, take this

and divide it among yourselves, for I tell you that

from now on, I will not drink of the fruit

of the vine until the Kingdom of God comes. Now,

notice he said he took one cup, and he gave

it to all of them. That's why traditionally you always

see one cup and everybody comes to that cup and

they share of the same cup, because church history and tradition,

Jesus had one cup. Some of y'all might be germophobes

and not be okay with that, but that's how it was.

I'm just saying. And it was real wine at that time,

not freshly squeezed grape juice. Yeah. I came out of

a background that believed that Jesus turned the water into

freshly squeezed grape juice. I'm telling the truth. Moving on,

and he says, right, I tell you that from now

on I will not drink of the fruit of the

vine until the Kingdom of God comes. And he took bread,

and when he had given thanks, he broke it and

gave it to them, saying, this is my body which

is given for you do this in remembrance of me.

And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, this

cup that has poured out for you, as the covenant

is the new covenant in my blood. One Christhians five says,

cleanse out the old leaven, that you may be a

new lump, as you really are unleavened for Christ, our

passover lamb has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the

festival not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice

and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

So I'm about to shift gears here in a second.

When you come together, is it not the Lord's supper

that you eat for an eating? Each one goes ahead

with his own meal, one goes hungry and other gets drunk.

What do you not have houses to eat and drinking?

Or do you despise the Church of God and humiliate

those who have nothing? See this is the horizontal observance

of the body. What shall I say to you? Shall

I commend you in this? No? I will not, for

I receive from the Lord what I also delivered to you.

That the Lord Jesus, on the night when he was betrayed,

took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke

it and said, this is my body which is for

you do this in remembrance of me. And the same

way also he took the cup after supper, saying this

cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this

as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.

For as often as you eat this bread and drink

the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

Whoever therefore eats the bread or drinks the cup of

the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning

the body and the blood of the Lord. Let a

person examine himself then, and so eat of the bread

and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and

drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself.

That is why many of you are weak and ill,

and some have died. But if we judged ourselves truly,

we would not be judged. But when we are judged

by the Lord, we are disciplined, so that we may

not be condemned along with the world. So, then, my brothers,

when you come together to eat, wait for one another.

If anyone is hungry, let him eat at home, so

that when you come together it will not be for

judgment about the other things. I will give direction when

I come. So you have this issue of the Corinthians

just really mucking everything up, I mean, just messed it

all up, and we're not taking care of the poor,

We're not taking care of each other. They're getting drunk

at communion. Obviously that was real wine. Otherwise they could

not have been drunk, right y'all with me. Just thought

I'd put that deep revelation right there. And so Paul's

setting orderies rebuking them. Do you think they even had

a clue while they were sick? Do you think they

knew why they were ill? Do you think they had

a clue why some of them had died? Scripture says,

my people perish for lack of knowledge. So check this out.

Church history of Communion. The testimony of the writings of

those who lived shortly after the Apostolic Age bears unmistakable

witness to the fact that the Lord's Supper was observed

each week on Sunday and only upon the day. In

the DIY document written about a d one twenty, so

this is one hundred and twenty years into New Covenant,

the statement is made that Christians come together each Lord's

Day of the Lord, break bread and give Thanks also

speaks of Christians meeting on Sunday and partaking of communion.

In Apology one sixty seven, Ignacious of Antioch said this

about communion. The bread is the flesh of Jesus, and

the cup is his blood. Iranius said, I should have

brought my cheaters. Iranius said, the bread and wine are

the Lord's body and blood. Hippolytus, however, you say that

the body and blood of Jesus Christ are what save

the church? Tortilian said, the bread is the Lord's body,

justin Martyr, hopefully not soon. The bread and wine are

the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ. Several first century

fathers believed in real presence. If you're wondering what real

presence communion is, bear with me in a minute, we'll

figure it out. Ignatius of Antioch he was actually a

child during Jesus's crucifixion, and he wrote about real presence

of Jesus in the Eucharis. Iranius lived from one forty

to two two a d. He believed in real presence.

Origin wrote that the flesh of Jesus's true food, and

his blood is true drink and saint Cyprian of Carthage,

a church father who believed in the real presence. He

was alive in two fifty Other church fathers believed in

real presence Clement, Alexandria and a few others in his

In this other Gentleman's book, Early Christians Speak, Everett Ferguson

has observed that the literature of the post Apostolic Age

indicates the Lord's Supper was a constant feature of the

Sunday service. He declares that there is no second century

evidence for the celebration of a daily communion. So how

in the world did we get so far away from

observing communion corporately? I mean, we've always had communion available

every Sunday, but we didn't always do it corporately. And

that and I can tell you that was one thing

the Lord really put a burden on my heart for.

So there's four main perspectives of communion which we're gonna

once we're on the other side of this here in

a minute, we are going to do corporate communion. Hopefully

nobody dies. Oh were those mine? Those look like mine?

You take my? Do you take my? My shades? Dude? Hey,

I'm watching you clearly, So number one transubstantiation. This is

actually the official teaching of Rompe. Those are too strong,

bro uh. The official teaching of Roman Catholicism trans y'all

with me means change, I'm being good, and substantiation means substance.

The idea is that when the bread and wine are

blessed by the priests during the Mass, the bread and

the wine are transformed into the actual physical body and

blood of Jesus Christ. This has been the stance of

the of the Catholic Church. Some argue when it started.

One thing we know clearly is the first pope was

Gregory the Great. In six early six hundreds, Martin Luther

took issue with this view of the Eucharis, and his

view has become known as conan substantiation con meaning together

and substantiation still meaning substance. Luther argued that, rather than

changing completely, the substance of the bread and wine coexist

with the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharus.

Jesus Christ is present in with and under the bread

and the wine whenever the Lord's Supper is celebrated. The

analogy people sometimes use is a sponge full of water.

The sponge isn't the water, and the water isn't the sponge,

but the two are there together with each other. Now

Zwingling or Zingli he was also around the time of

Reformation with Luther and Calvin in the sixteenth century. He

taught the memorial view of the Lord's Supper. And this

is actually the viewpoint that I held as a Baptist

for a very very long time. He said that Christ

commanded us to do this in remembrance of him, and

thus is all it is an act of remembrance. That's it.

The bread and wine are merely symbols reminding us that

Christ's body was broken for us and his blood was

shed for us, but that there is nothing to it

except for to remember symbolically. In the fourth and final view,

John Calvin, who was around at the same time. His

take on the Lord's Supper has become known as spiritual

presence or real presence view. He took strong issue with

the Roman Catholic view, and he definitely didn't agree with

Luther either. At the same time, he thought Zwingling's view

didn't go far enough. The Lord's Supper is more than

just a memorial Calvin said, yeah, like if people are

getting ill and sick and dying. It's got to be

more than just a symbolic act. Right. It's certainly symbolic,

But the symbols do more than merely represent. They actually

bring to us the presence of Jesus Christ and his benefits. Yes,

Christ's human body is locally present in heaven. But and said,

it doesn't have to descend in order for believers to

truly partake of it. Why because the Holy Spirit makes

true fellowship possible here and now. The Holy Spirit is

Christ's spirit. He lifts us to the heavenlyes to feed

on Christ. Those who eat the bread and drink the

wine in faith are also, by the power of the

Holy Spirit, actually being nourished by the body and blood

of Christ. So what are we to make of all this?

And what sense is Christ's present in the Lord's Supper?

The reality is that when we eat and drink together

as brothers and sisters, Christ's Spirit is present. Two, which

means that the risen Lord Jesus himself truly meets us

when we come to his table. Do you expect to

encounter the presence of Jesus in a unique, more intense

way when you do communion? Or is it really just

to check the box as a good spiritual discipline, and

you're being good. See, I think we need to up

our faith with partaking and observing communion and what he

actually wants to do in that communion. Are y' all

with me? No? At least pretend, Okay, So I'm going

to start to land this so we can get communion.

The guy mentioned earlier, Cyprian of Carthage. He was a

bishop around like two fifty to three hundred a d.

He was an eyewitness to many Christians that had sacrificed

to pagan gods in the order of Rome and would

then come and take communion, and wild things happened. See,

Rome was commanding everyone during that time to sacrifice to

false God, to demons, and the Christians, many of them

had the fear of man and they didn't want to

be persecuted. So they were actually in the Christians in Rome,

and they were going and sacrificing to these gods and

then coming back to do communion to the Lord's table.

Kind of like the same principle with the Carinthian Church,

communing at the table of demons and communing at the

table of the Lord. Here's a couple of things that

actually took place. The guilty were terrified by marvels that occurred.

A man was struck dumb on the very capital where

he had denied Christ. Another went mad and the pulpit

public baths and gnawed the tongue which had tasted the

pagan victim and Cyprian's own presence. An infant who had

been taken by its nurse to partake at the heathen

altar and then to the holy sacrifice offered by the bishop,

was as though in torture, and vomited the sacred species

it had received in the holy chalice. A lapsed woman

of advanced age had fallen in a fit on venturing

to communicate unworthy unworthily. Another, on opening the receptacle on which,

according to customs, she had taken home the blessed sacrament

for private communion, was deterred or deterred from sacrilegiously touching

it by fire that came forth. Hello, So I think

there's enough illustrations here to hammer home that when we

are coming to the Lord's table, we need the fear

of the Lord. Number one, which has been lacking in

the body of Christ significantly, and number two it has

to be way more than just to remember a piece

of bread and some grape juice. There has to be

something much more taking place in that union with us

in Jesus. So y'all ready to do communion. I didn't

scare anybody out of it. If I can have y'all

bring communion, Wayne, you're still here. Awesome, Thank you, sir.

I appreciate that. And we're gonna finish on time. That's

really wild. Miracles do happen. So if you're wondering what

our stance is, it's it's real presence. We don't personally

hold to transubstantiation. We don't personally hold to Lutheran's yeah viewpoint,

we don't hold to U zwingling, where it's just symbolic.

We got the wine, so for those of you that

don't want the real bread, you can still do the

wafer that's in there. Pardon did y'all get him? That

hadn't made their way up there yet? And we also,

obviously uh believe in open communion. The only requirement is

that you know Jesus right, Hey, Sean, there's oh okay.

As they're finishing handing that out, I just want to

encourage all to just take a moment with the Lord. Lord.

I thank you for your body. Lord, I thank you

for your body that was beaten beyond recognition for us

Jesus that by your stripes we are healed. And Lord,

right now, we just we take a moment to say

forgive us, Lord for when we personally have not properly

observed your body, Lord, both vertically and horizontally. Lord Jesus,

I thank you for meeting with us right now in

a special, unique way. Lord, I thank you that communion

is an act of spiritual warfare, and we are declaring

to the principalities and powers your death, burial and resurrection

and your return. Every time we do this, they are reminded, Lord,

when we do communion, that you made a public spectacle

out of them, stripping them of all authority and redeeming us. Lord. Lord,

would you bless this time this communion with you. Lord,

would you bring healing to the body, Father, would you

bring healing of hearts, healing to physical bodies? Lord, would

you eradicate aches and pains and diseases? Lord, in this moment,

because by your stripes we are healed. Lord, I thank

you for your body and we do this in remembrance

of you, Lord, as you held up the cup of blessing,

the cup of salvation with the disciples and said, this

is the New Covenant. My blood in this cup, Jesus,

we are reminded of the reality that you shed your

blood for us. Lord. Without the shedding of blood, there's

no remission, no forgiveness of sin. Lord. We thank you

for the blood of the New Covenant. We thank you

that you were willing to empty yourself for us and

go to the cross. Lord, we are thankful that you

willingly emptied yourself and became a man to take our place.

We thank you that you're the last Adam Jesus. Thank

you for this awesome privilege to commune with you and

to be reminded of the price that you paid for

every single person. And we take this, Lord, in remembrance

of your bloodshed. We do this, Lord knowing that you're

with us. In Jesus' name. All right, if I could

have the prayer teams come forward, I'm gonna close us

in prayer. If you need prayer, please come forward, And

if you have children, please do not forget them. And

we love you all so. Father, thank you for your goodness, Lord,

thank you for like Acts three, the restoration of all things. Lord,

we're living in the days of the restoration of all things,

and I thank you for the privilege for us to

be able to corporately commune with you, to gather as

your body is one in you, in Jesus' mighty name. Amen.

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