Get on Board | Dr. John Ewart

Hey everybody, this is Pastor John Ewart from Englewood

Baptist Church in Rocky Mountain, North Carolina.

Thank you so much for tuning in to our podcast.

You're going to hear from God today as we share from his word

about important issues facing your life that can guide you

according to the Bible. Well, good morning, Englewood.

Take your Bibles this morning and turn to Acts Chapter 9, if

Acts 9 · chapter mention

you will. I appreciate so much you being

here. If you're a guest this morning,

thank you so much. I saw a couple of guests earlier

today. Appreciate you being here so

much and look forward to what God's going to share with us.

We've been studying the book of Acts together and we're going to

continue that in just a moment. Then we're going to celebrate

the Lord's Supper. Forget to celebrate both the

ordinances, this ordinances this morning with Graceland being

baptized earlier, which we appreciate.

So last Wednesday night we did some prayer walking training.

Head over 200 people going out in about a three mile radius

around this building. They're going to prayer walk

over 2200 homes. They're doing that for the next

three weeks in conjunction with preparation for vacation Bible

School. So I appreciated those of you

who did, who were here and are doing that this Wednesday night,

we're actually going to have our Midsummer prayer meeting right

back in here. And so students will be in the

edge. Adults will be back in here and

we're going to have a prayer time together.

That'll be very special, kind of like we did before Easter.

But we also are going to have testimonies from prayer walking

already heard a few. So I hope you'll be back this

Wednesday night. It'll be a it'll be a very

special night. And they're looking forward to

I'm a vacation Bible school of holic.

So looking forward to VBS Thank you those who are working and

serving. Few years ago I was, I was with

my daughter in Uganda. Uganda was a common destination

for us for many, many years. We have had a partnership with

the Uganda Baptist Seminary for a long time, one of the oldest

partnerships we had. And so we've trained all of

their faculty more or less with master's degrees.

And so I would go over and teach quite often and whenever I took

one of the kids or Teresa was with me, we would sometimes do a

little, little tourism. I didn't know a lot of that when

I was travelling, but we went up to a game park there and drove

around, saw some of the animals and whatnot like you do.

And then that night we were camping along the Nile River

because the Nile flows out of Lake Victoria there.

And that it that you know, you have tent camps.

I don't know if you know this. You can, you can safari in a

couple different ways. You can stay in a lodge or you

can tent camp. These are big tents.

They're big, heavy, heavy vinyl tints with, with windows and

they're pretty nice on the inside.

Had a, had a, had a cot kind of idea set up.

And that night when we were eating dinner in the camp, the,

the, the leader of the camp, the person who ran it, warned us

that at night the hippos would come out of the river and graze

around the tents. And, and so don't worry about

them. Just don't startle them and

everything will be fine. And that, that didn't help me

sleep at all. But and so about two O clock in

the morning, my daughter, you know, wakes me up and she goes

dad, dad. And and right outside the, you

know, it's a, it's a mesh, you know, windows in a, in a tent.

They're mesh. This mesh tent about for me to

that keyboard was that you could, you could see this giant

shadow and then you could hear it.

It was, I don't know if you know this, but hippos come out at

night and graze on grass like cows.

And so they're out there chomping on the grass and you

can imagine that big old mouth and you just right, right by my

head. And so at that point I wasn't

going back to sleep, but so, so we sat there and we were kind

of, and you can, if you looked, you can see there's a whole herd

of them. There's a whole herd of hippos

right outside my vinyl mesh tent.

Well, now it's the middle of the night.

So of course I got to go to the bathroom.

So now the problem is, is that the bathroom was a little Wicker

spirally thing about where the drum set is.

And, and so I, you have to go outside your tent to get there.

And so I, I, my daughter is suggesting to me, this is not

the wisest choice to make, but I go and there's a big heavy duty

zipper on the tent and, and Velcro to keep the bugs and

stuff out snakes and bugs and whatnot.

So of course I go and and the ground begins to shake because I

have now caused a hippo Stampede and the rest of the camp is now

awake and they're not appreciating whoever it was who

caused the hippo Stampede, as you can imagine, so that you can

hear them. They run to the river and then

they spin around and their mouths are open.

Because I don't know if you know this or not, but hippos kill

more people in Africa than any other animal.

But they, they do it in the water.

They're very territorial in the water.

They're, they run on the land and get back there, you know,

like that. And I wasn't going swimming

after I used the bathroom. And I, and I think about that

story. My daughter and I bought little

matching. We have little hippo bowls that

we have at the house. Remember the truth, You know,

it's amazing what produces fear in our lives.

Sometimes the real things, sometimes they're just perceived

things, threats, sometimes giant shadowy grass eating, grunting

fears. But it's also kind of amazing

how God can powerfully Dr. our fears away that he can he can

transform our fear into faith. And that's part of what we're

going to see in a passage today. We we got to walk closely with

him. We need to abide in him.

We we want to bring him great glory.

We want to live out his mission, but we're currently working

really hard behind the scenes, connecting people and ministries

and schedules and events into a unified vision to move forward

into this new chapter that he has for Inglewood.

And so we've met for hours upon hours upon hours in various ways

with various groups as leadership teams.

And so I'm going to have a whole lot to share with you.

And God is just revealing to us and we believe laying out for us

his plan for us. We're very excited about it, but

we need to listen very carefully.

And then we need to respond very actively in obedience to Him as

we come together and we come join the King's mission.

And that's been our theme throughout the the story of

Acts, because we're, we're studying about the early church

so that we can learn about church, we can learn about

church membership and discipleship.

But but always remember, even when we face giant, shadowy,

scary challenges in the darkness of life, that he's with us and

he never leaves us. He has great purpose for us.

And he and, and all of us must get on board with him with

whatever his plan is. And so as we've been learning in

our study of Acts, sometimes those challenges are very real.

Sometimes it's very dangerous. If you, if you haven't been with

us for the last couple of weeks, the church is experiencing great

persecution. It's a hard time.

Look at Acts Chapter 9, verse one.

Acts 9 · chapter mention

But Saul still breathing threats and murders against and murder

against the disciples of the Lord went to the high priest and

asked him for letters to the synagogues of Damascus so that

if you found any belonging to the way men or women, he might

bring them bound to Jerusalem. And so so to join God's mission.

One of the things we got to make very clear is that it does not

depend upon our self righteousness.

And this is something we really need to be sure about because we

we see that Saul's intending to stamp out this new movement.

He he wanted to exterminate Christians.

Don't miss the violent language there.

He even uses the word murder. He's not just going to throw him

in jail. He's going to kill you if he

can. He wanted to exterminate

Christians in Christianity. But here's the part that's

important. He thought he was doing this in

the name of God. He really thought that he was

righteous in his mission. He thought that what he was

doing was the right thing. These Christians are escaping

Jerusalem, and I got to go get them so they don't get away.

So he gets letters of introduction, probably from

Caiaphas himself, probably the same high priest who crucified

Jesus and absolutely hated his followers.

And so these letters to the synagogues of Damascus would

rally local support to help him arrest Christians so he could

haul them back to Jerusalem for punishment.

But again, listen. Self defining the will of God

will fail. Self defining the will of God

will lead you to the wrong conclusion every single time.

Your plans alone are simply not enough.

Self righteousness will never be enough.

No matter how intelligent you think you are, no matter how

perfect you may think you are, you will simply never be perfect

enough or smart enough. So your imperfect ways will

always fall short. You were not created to live

this life on your own, no matter what you think.

And you can be a guest today and you, you could say I'm just kind

of abiding my time to get through this Christianity junk.

But you may be hearing me online today and think that, but you've

got to understand your ways will be imperfect and they will fail

you. So we cannot work our way.

We cannot earn our way. We cannot somehow gain through

our own work the the acceptance of God.

That's not how salvation works. That's not how our relationship

with Him works. And that's why we're going to

celebrate the Lord's Supper in a minute because he demands

something far more than our self righteousness.

I don't I don't care how how much you think you got a handle

on it. That handle will slip and he

demands more because self righteousness won't get us

there. Look at verse 3.

Now as he went on his way, he approached Damascus and suddenly

a light from heaven shone around him and falling to the ground,

he heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why are you

persecuting me? And he said, who are you Lord?

And he said, I am Jesus whom you're persecuting.

So, so joining God's mission, self righteousness is not going

to work, but instead it demands spiritual transformation.

It's difficult to overestimate the significance of Saul's

conversion this soon to be preacher, missionary, theologian

who not only spreads the gospel and plants churches, but

actually helps write a large percentage under the leadership

of the Holy Spirit of what we call the New Testament.

He's blinded and the light was extremely bright because later

on in chapters 22 and 26, he'll tell you that it's midday, it's

the middle of the day, and so this light had to be extremely

bright, right? The glory of the Lord knocks him

to the ground, knocks him to his knees.

The words of Jesus hit him like a tidal wave.

It was that you got to hear me. It was the opposite of

everything he believed to be true.

This was a smart guy. Saul might have had a genius

intellect. He was a student of the great

Gameliel. This is a smart person and and

everything he thought was right, everything he had it all figured

out. Everything in his self

righteousness, everything he had packaged up was wrong.

His self defined righteousness and truth were wrong.

His self perceived perfection was imperfect.

Saul was persecuting believers because he thought the

Christians were telling lies about Jesus rising from the dead

and being the Messiah. But instead he's the one that

the genius is the one who's living the lie.

And our world does the same thing.

Friends, maybe you do the same thing.

Maybe you justify your own beliefs and you disregard belief

in Jesus. Maybe you think Christianity is

myth or all a lie. Or maybe you have the attitude

and this is what I see a lot of. I've seen this even as I've

visited with some folks here. Here's the attitude I get a lot.

I'm OK. I'm as good as the next guy.

So I don't need Jesus. I don't.

I don't need the church. Listen to me.

That philosophy is flawed and it will fail you.

So Saul beheld Christ's glory and the undeniable proof and

truth of who Jesus really is. Not only does Jesus lives, but

the Lord Jesus reigns. He is the Lord, He is the

curious, and he recognizes it. So the one who held the power of

the Sanhedrin in his hands, the one who screened threats of

imprisonment and even murder against the church was blinded

and broken. Before Jesus, Saul had been

persecuting what he thought were a band of heretics and he had

actually been fighting God himself and his self

righteousness now was like filthy rags before Christ and

his self defined truth was lying in the dirt.

No more arguments, no more threats, no more debate and

gang, I remember being in that place before Christ.

I remember he had to break me so I could realize the truth.

No more arguments, no more debate on my knees.

And I pray you remember when you were convinced of who Jesus

truly is, the real truth. That's what we're going to

celebrate in a minute. And and so in a moment, those of

us who already know that and have experienced personal

transformation by him, we're not only going to remember what he's

done for us, we're going to remember what he's done to us as

we celebrate the Lord's Supper. Because only Jesus Christ had

this has the true power. Only he has control.

Only he can transform you into who you're supposed to be.

Only he could transform somebody who once denied him.

So do not dare deny Jesus any long any longer.

And that's about as fair and an honest warning as I could ever

give you. Verse 6.

But rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you were

to do. The men who were travelling with

him stood speechless, hearing the voice, but seeing no one.

Saul rose from the ground. Saul rose from the ground, and

although his eyes were opened, he saw nothing.

So they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus.

And for three days he was without sight and neither ate

nor drank. Now here and later again in

chapter 22, we will read that Saul sees this light and hears

the voice. The people with him saw the

light. They heard a noise, but they

couldn't hear the voice. The voice was only for Saul.

But that's the way salvation is. See, salvation, true salvation,

is very personal. Just like Graceland testified

earlier and was baptized in their other service.

You must be saved. It doesn't matter what your Mama

did. It doesn't matter what your

grandmama did. It doesn't matter if it's Ram or

tradition to go to church. It doesn't matter if everybody

goes to church because you're supposed to go to church.

That's not going to save you. It's not enough.

You have to be saved between you and the Lord.

And Jesus could not and would not be ignored any longer by

this persecutor. The King's mission can't be

ignored. He calls us to pursue.

He calls us to seek. He calls us to get on board.

But Paul. But excuse me, Saul hadn't

changed his name yet. But Saul was not the only one in

this story who needed transformation.

Look at verse 10. Now there was a disciple of

Damascus named Ananias. And the Lord said to him in a

vision, Ananias. And he said, Here I am, Lord.

And the Lord said to him, Rise and go to the street called

Straight, And at the House of Judas look for a man of Tarsus

named Saul. For behold, he is praying, and

he has seen a vision. Seen in a vision a man named

Ananias come in and lay his hands on him, so that he might

regain his sight. But Ananias answered, Lord, I

have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done

to your Saints at Jerusalem, and here he has the authority from

the chief priest to bind all who call on your name.

But the Lord said to him, go, for he is a chosen instrument of

mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the

children of Israel. For I will show him, I will show

him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.

So Christians were already in Damascus, which may be why

others for fleeing from Jerusalem to Damascus.

It might have been they wanted to be there in that community.

And Ananias actually responds kind of like an Old Testament

prophet. You see it often when God calls,

he says, here I am, Lord, I'm here.

And then he's given these specific instructions about Saul

and he responds to God with us. Say what?

You want me to do what I mean? Saul's reputation was well

known. His mission was obviously even

well known. They knew what he was doing.

They knew what he was about. And Ananias's fear was well

founded by every earthly standard.

Let me give you a piece of advice.

It's not smart to go out in the African night and use the

bathroom in a herd of hippos. Now don't let that be the only

thing you remember from this morning.

But Ananias fear required some transformation, didn't it?

Something had to change. I mean, his fear is real.

Our fear of responding to God, our fear of obeying him

sometimes in service, must be transformed into faith.

We we might ought not always be confident even of what God wants

from us. You're calling me to do what?

Me. Me You.

You want me to volunteer in Vacation Bible school?

You want me to take a turn working in the nursery?

You You want me to help with children?

You want you want me to serve on a ministry team.

You, you want me to join a connect group.

I mean the preacher harps about it non-stop.

You want me to join one of those?

You want me to lead a connect group?

You, you want me to teach? You want me to serve full time

on the mission field? You want me to be on a mission

trip? You.

You want me to be in full? Me.

Lord, you don't know me. But wait a minute.

Yeah, you do. You know me better than than I

know me. Listen there.

There's absolutely one of the greatest miracles you've ever

witnessed in your life is me standing here.

You, you have no idea. But there's nothing in my DNA,

my background, my culture, my tradition that would say that

this is where I was going to end up.

Nothing. Me.

We may need our faith and our fears transformed to understand

His way, to understand His calling and purpose for us.

He has a reason for you existing today, and He'll guide us.

He wants us to know His mission. He's not trying to keep it a

secret from us. He wants us to know what he

wants. Listen to what he says, Verse

15. He lays the foundation for

Paul's life purpose. He's a chosen instrument of mine

to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the

children of Israel. I mean, here's a clear

understanding of the whole reason why Saul or Paul exists.

Here's his why. Here's his who of calling and

ministry and mission right now. If I were to ask you, what would

that verse need to say about your life?

What's your calling? If you're a believer, you have

one. What's your giftedness?

If you're a believer, you have that.

What's your purpose? We all have a reason for being

alive. What is your why and what is

your who? Why are you here and who are you

supposed to be? God has those answers for you,

and we're going to give you avenues here at Inglewood to

begin to live them out through our discipleship process that

we're getting ready to unveil be because I want you to behold the

power of the King's mission. I don't want to just talk about

it. We're going to live it.

Look at verse 17. So Ananias got on a boat and ran

away. Is that what it says?

No. So Ananias departed and entered

the house. Now you're going to see one of

the most brilliant testimonies of grace right here.

And laying his hands on him, he said.

What did he call him? Huh, man?

The gospel, he said. Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus,

who appeared to you on the road by which you came, has sent me,

so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the

Holy Spirit. And immediately something like

scales fell from his eyes, and he regained his sight.

Then he rose and was baptized, and taking food he was

strengthened. For some days he was with the

disciples at Damascus and. And I just listened.

And even though he's scared to death, even though it makes no

sense, God, this is totally illogical.

You're going to get me killed. I'm going to end up in prison in

Jerusalem. This is crazy.

God. He did it anyway.

He obeyed. And that's some real fear

transformed into faith right there.

And then. You see that amazing greeting,

brother Saul? I mean, see what Christ can do.

See what grace creates. He makes enemies into brothers.

So Saul was spiritually transformed and physically

healed, and Anais was faithfully transformed and obeyed.

And I just want you to see the wonderful cycle of discipleship

and evangelism that he calls us to that never, ever ends.

Look at verse 20 and immediately this is Saul.

He proclaimed Jesus in the synagogues, saying He is the Son

of God. And all who heard him were

amazed and said, is this not the man who made havoc in Jerusalem

of those who called upon this name?

And has he not come here for this purpose to bring them bound

before the chief priests? But Saul increased all the more

in strength and confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by

proving that Jesus was the Christ.

See, joining God's mission does not depend upon our self

righteousness. We're never going to be good

enough. This isn't about whether we're

good or bad. This is about who we believe in.

And then it does demand our spiritual transformation.

But it also thirdly, is going to expect sacrificial service.

You don't just get to be saved and sit back.

That's not how this works. It's never worked that way.

Jesus transformed a raging, zealous persecutor into a

passionate, zealous preacher. I can't wait for you to meet my

friend in November who's going to come and share with us during

Missions Week who was a radical Muslim and then became a radical

house church pastor in the middle of Iran, preaching in the

synagogue about who Jesus truly was.

His complete transformation absolutely shocked them.

It absolutely astounded them. He was just as passionate for

Christ as he had been about stopping Christ.

And it says that he was proving that Jesus was the Christ.

That word proving is a Greek word that means to join, to

think of a jigsaw puzzle, join things together.

So what he's doing is he's taking the Old Testament texts

and he's connecting them, showing how Jesus fulfills them

and how the the whole stories about him, that's what he's

doing. And they're unable to refute the

skillful interpretation of the former student of the mighty

Rabbi Gamilio. And the Bible says that Saul

increased all the more in his strength.

He kept on growing and kept on growing.

And his ability to share about Jesus.

One of the things that I'm going to do this fall is I want to

teach you how to naturally relationally share your faith.

I want you to learn how to be evangelistic, not just how to do

evangelism. 1 is a state of being 24 hours a day, seven days

a week. The other one is a program you

learn. And we're going to I want to

teach you how to be in that state of being just a natural

overflow of who you are in Jesus to share about him with others.

So salvation and sanctification continually transform us into

the disciples that God uses for his glory.

And it never ever stops. So first you means to be truly

saved by Jesus. I appreciated the testimony in

the lobby. I heard of someone who recently

has done that. And then you must grow in

discipleship as his follower. And that never stops.

It never stops. So new vision and mission

statements are coming your way. We've been working as leadership

on these with supporting essential discipleship

descriptions and goals that we believe God has guided us to

that guide us to create. That will be presented very,

very soon. And we're going to, I'm going to

preach about these things. We're going to teach about these

things. We're going to share about these

things. And it's going to guide us to

become, to become better at who we must be and to know what we

must know and to do what we must do in order to be disciples, in

order for us to increase in strength and to prove to others

that Jesus really is the Christ. And my prayer soon is that

there's not an empty seat in here for either service, because

we're drawing people to come hear about our Lord.

How will you serve him, all of you?

What percentage of participation do I expect?

Crazy man? Absurd.

But then again, I walk with herds of hippos, so who am I to

tell you it's time to mobilize, It's time to move.

But remember, our enemy never stops.

Our enemy never sleeps. He'll never relent.

Look at verse 23. When many days had passed, the

Jews plotted to kill him, but their plot became known to Saul.

They were watching the gates day and night in order to kill him.

But his disciples took him by night and let him down through

an opening in the wall, lowering him in a basket.

They couldn't stop him, so let's just kill him.

The persecutor turned preacher becomes the persecuted.

The hunter becomes the haunted. And there's a price to pay.

There's a sacrifice to make when you fully follow Jesus.

Remember, Jesus even told him in verse 16, I'm going to show him

how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.

There's a price to pay. So they helped him escape.

If you were reading in Galatians, it's interesting to

read the letters of Paul, compare them to the book of

Acts. You'll learn a lot.

There's a lot of commentary back and forth between the two In

Galatians chapter 1, he'll, he'll share how he goes down to

Galatians 1 · chapter mention

Arabia, eventually back to Damascus, and then finally to

Jerusalem after about three years.

And so time frames in the book of Acts are kind of slippery,

kind of tricky. So what you're getting ready to

see is actually three years later, verse 26.

And when he had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join

the disciples, and they were all afraid of him, for they did not

believe that he was a disciple. But Barnabas took him and

brought him to the apostles and declared to them how on the road

he had seen the Lord who spoke to him, and how at Damascus he

had preached boldly in the name of Jesus.

So he went in and out among them at Jerusalem, preaching boldly

in the name of the Lord. And he spoke and disputed

against the Hellenists, but they were seeking to kill him.

And when the brothers learned this, they brought him down to

Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus.

They, the disciples, were just as afraid of him as Ananias was.

So in steps, Barnabas, it's nice to have an encouraging mediator

in your life. We need fellow followers.

We, we need to stand and support one another.

We need people to encourage us at times.

Sometimes we need people to catch us.

We, we need to stand and serve together.

And I don't know about you, that sounds a whole lot like connect

groups. But then again, I just rant and

rave about those all the time. But between our family

ministries and our connect groups, we stand together on

teams, working together. So Saul preached, he preached

too, and he debated with these Jews in Jerusalem until

persecution came and they send him home to Tarsus.

And he ministered there for some time and we'll pick up his story

later again. But what price will you pay to

see God's mission fulfilled? Are you willing to serve, even

sacrifice? Let me get more pointed.

Where do you sacrificially serve in the life of this church right

now? Or would you?

I want you to think of this initial quadrant of four things.

100% participation. Now, there are other things I

know and I'm not, I'm not disputing those, the importance

of other things, but I just want you to think about these four

things. I want you to think about the

worship service. I want you to think about

connect groups, I want you to think about midweek, and I want

you to think about service. Let's start with those four

things, 100% participation in those four things.

Now other opportunities exist and we're going to continue to

talk about it and give you specific ways and places to

serve. But first, join that connect

group so we can work together. And let's see what God does with

people fully on board. Because joining His mission is

not dependent upon our self righteousness and who we are.

It demands spiritual transformation.

It expects sacrificial service. And then look at verse 31 before

we take the Supper. So the church throughout all

Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up

and walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the

Holy Spirit. It multiplied.

The last thing we see is, is that joining God's mission will

result in our growth. And they had peace, they had

growth, they had fear, they had comfort.

And it's remarkable they have it all at the same time.

You got to understand these are issues of worship and authority.

The Holy Spirit blessed and comforted them because of their

complete dependence upon Him. And the Lord once again steps in

and brings His people through crisis, brings them through

transition. That giant, that giant danger,

dangerous Stampede could not overwhelm them.

Instead, the monster became a messenger instead of a thread

anymore. And through the deliverance of

the Holy Spirit, the Church flourishes us and flourishes.

But I want you to see this formula.

I want you to take careful note of this.

Qualitative growth and spiritual transformation led to God

glorifying quantitative growth. And it's in that order.

You got to understand the significance of the order of

things. We must have a qualitative drive

with the expectation of quantitative growth and not

simply a quantitative drive with the hope of qualitative growth.

And you really need to understand what I just said.

Quality must come first. We need to develop our

discipleship. We need to be transformed.

We need to be willing to grow and to serve and to sacrifice.

We need to be saved and then pursued.

Personal discipleship and the discipleship of others.

And so then we'll see. God bless.

We've seen it. Teresa and I have seen this over

and over and over again. When you do it in the right

order, you do it in the right way.

God blesses it. If we just start off with

numbers and we're just about drawing the crowd, we don't know

whether we're producing disciples or not.

We don't know whether we're bringing God glory or not.

But if we're actually making disciples, we know that's going

to bring him glory. He's going to bless that.

He's going to bring more people, and we'll see us grow and grow

and grow. So who?

Tough question, Who and how many are you discipling personally

right now? Don't just be a disciple, be a

disciple maker. Because what a powerful

testimony this text presents to us.

It's a testimony of transformation.

And for those of us who have already experienced his

transforming power, what we're going to do now is celebrate him

by remembering what He's done for us.

The Lord's Supper is an ordinance of the church.

It's not a sacrament. I want to be very clear now.

Sacrament is a ritual in which it's believed that God's grace

is dispensed when you observe it.

So Sacramento theology means that salvation comes through

these works as part of your salvation.

We don't practice sacraments here.

We don't believe that's what the Bible teaches.

We believe the Bible clearly teaches that salvation is by

grace through faith and not the result of works.

So an ordinance therefore is an act of obedience where believers

observe to fulfill command of Christ and to testify about what

he has already done in their lives.

So these, these ordinances, baptism, Lord's Supper, these

are visuals of the gospel we share, not to be saved or to

maintain our salvation, but because we are saved.

So we take the supper to testify, We take the supper to

remember what Christ has already done for us on the cross through

his sacrifice. He gave his body, He gave his

blood to pay for the price for our sins that had to be paid

and, and, and we could never pay ourselves.

He's the only one who was perfect enough, the only one

capable, the only one qualified to pay the debt of our sin.

We also take the supper to remember.

We take the supper to renew. We renew our commitment to be

the disciples He desires for us to be.

So this is a time of renewal. There should be a time of

recommitment. There should be a time of

revival of our understanding, our appreciation, and our

participation in our covenant relationship with Christ.

So the Supper does not make that happen in some supernatural way.

We do not believe the bread and the cup transform into ways to

receive grace. They are just symbols of grace

already received and the opportunity to proclaim what

Christ has already done. So the only one.

This is important because the Bible gives us very strict

warnings about this. So only the one who has

experienced true salvation can actually prepare to take the

Supper in a worthy manner. Only those who've been saved by

grace through faith can recognize the sin that would

cause them to be unworthy to take the supper.

So the Lord's Supper, just like baptism, is for believers.

And I want to thank Graceland again in the earliest service

for testifying for us. So a non believer has not yet

experienced the saving grace which the Supper proclaims and

therefore cannot remember or celebrate what they have not

experienced yet. So those of you who have not

personally trusted in Christ as your Lord and Savior, I just

encourage you not to take the supper.

I encourage you to observe how we participate and take the

supper first, be saved, then share in the supper with us to

remember to proclaim what has then also happened to you.

So we're going to prepare now to take this supper, this

celebration of remembrance. After I pray, we're going to

have a moment of just silent reflection as the instruments

play. It's not a time there will be no

one standing at the front. This is just a time for you to

stay where you are. This is a time for reflection.

It's a time for confession. It's a time for repentance.

It could be time for preparation for those of you who need to

trust in Christ as your Lord and Savior.

It could be a moment of salvation.

So I'm going to pray. We're going to reflect for just

a moment, then we're going to take the supper together.

Father, I thank you so much for the testimony of Saul.

Father, I thank you so much for the way that you used him, for

the way that you changed him. And then, Father, it just forces

me to thank you for the way that you've changed me.

I needed to be changed. Still in the process of

changing. Father, thank you.

And so, Father, I thank you for salvation.

I thank you for dying on the cross to pay for our sins

because we could not. Thank you for your victory over

death so we could live. And now I pray that we will

prepare our hearts well, examine ourselves and prepare well so

that we might celebrate, we might remember, we might

proclaim. Thank you so much for listening

today. And I also hope that you'll go

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you and your families. Thank you once again.