Juxtaposed to Jericho

Would you grab a Bible and turn with me to Joshua chapter 5?

Joshua 5 · chapter mention

Let me pray for us. Father God, we desire to humble

ourselves under Your Word. You have exalted above all

things Your name and Your Word. So we as your people, we've come

to honor Your name by submitting ourselves to the teaching of

Your Word. So we ask you, Lord, to take up

these next few moments to send Your Spirit as You promised to

us, so that we could be built up and established in the faith

that the body of Christ might build itself up in love.

So we pray, Lord, that You would equip us through this word, and

I pray that You would use me to do it.

Give me joy in it and give us all gratitude for the fact that

our God is a God who is not silent.

You are here with us and you speak to us even now.

And so we await your good pleasure.

Lord, speak and we will listen. We ask it in your name, Amen.

So you're in Joshua chapter 5. And let me say as we dig into

Joshua 5 · chapter mention

this text, that the context of any kind of word or any kind of

action matters at least as much as the words themselves, right?

So if, if I if I say the phrase to Gracie, maybe Gracie says to

me, I want to eat, I want to eat guacamole for dinner.

And I say, but I don't there's no great strain there, right?

I'm allergic to guacamole makes me sick of my stomach.

So there's no my my words, but I don't don't mean all that much.

But if Gracie looks at me in the face and says, Will Martin, you

are the greatest man I've ever known and I'm so glad I'm

married to you and I love you and I say, but I don't.

It's the same words in different contexts makes all the

difference, right? Stories are the same way.

Any any action when you're in the scriptures, anytime you read

about a about an action in scripture, the key to unlocking

what's actually going on is to make sure that you understand

the surrounding context. And so today there's three

distinct actions that that the text that Joshua chapter 5 is

Joshua 5 · chapter mention

going to give us, and they're sandwiched in between two very

important things, right? We're going to see 3 distinct

movements, 3 distinct actions that are sandwiched between

Joshua leading the, the children of Israel over the Jordan into

the promised land. And, and, and that's, it's after

that and it's right before Jericho falls.

And so these actions, when we see them in that light of it's

sandwiched between those 2 events, they come to us as a

preparation for for conquest, as a, as a response to what's

happened and as a preparation for contact or for conquest.

And so the three actions, and I'll show you each in turn,

circumcision, celebration and visitation.

Those are the three things that that God shows us in Joshua

Joshua 5 · chapter mention

chapter 5 to prepare God's people for conquest.

So the first we're going to see a circumcision or renewing the

covenant with the Lord. So I want to reread this to you

and verses one through 1 through 9 and I'll make a couple of

comments on on the way. Joshua, the book of Joshua says

as soon as key, key phrase, as soon as So there's a time stamp

there as soon as all the kings of the Amorites who are beyond

the Jordan to the West and all the kings of the Canaanites who

are by the sea heard as soon as they heard that the Lord had

dried up the waters of the Jordan for the people of Israel

until they had crossed over their hearts melted.

There was no longer any spirit in them because of the people of

Israel. So Joshua says right after God

has dried up the waters of the Red Sea, all the enemies of

Israel lose all of their courage.

And you might understand that like they are being led by a God

who can do wonders that we have never seen.

And so the enemies of Israel in this moment are terrified.

Now pop quiz What do you do if you're in a fight and your enemy

is terrified, has no spirit, wants to run?

What do you do if you're a good general, you sound the charge,

you go, you fight, you pursue. Look in verse 2.

At that time, as soon as all of the enemies of Israel are

terrified, at that time, the Lord said to Joshua, make Flint

knives, circumcise the sons of Israel a second time.

Isn't that wild? Do something that will

debilitate your army. What do you think about that?

It says so Joshua made Flint knives and circumcise the sons

of Israel at Gibeath. Ha Arala, your guess is as good

as mine. How that's supposed to be read.

It means the hill of the foreskins.

OK, so you have hundreds of thousands of men who need to be

circumcised. And so the pile of gross, bloody

flesh is substantial. And this is the reason why

Joshua circumcised them. All the males who came out of

Egypt, all the men of war had died in the wilderness on the

way after they had come out of Egypt.

The though all the people who came out had been circumcised,

yet all the people who were born on the way.

That's the key phrase. Anybody born on the way in the

wilderness after they had come out of Egypt had not been

circumcised. That is contrary to command,

that's contrary to law. They had not kept the covenant.

Parents did not put their the sign of the covenant on their

children. For the people of Israel walked

forty years in the wilderness until all the nation, the men of

war who came out of Egypt perished because they did not

obey the voice of the Lord. The Lord swore to them that He

would not let them see the land that the Lord had sworn to give

their fathers, to give us a land flowing with milk and honey.

So it was their children whom He raised up in their place that

Joshua circumcised, for they were uncircumcised because they

had not been circumcised on the way.

Now in verse 8, when the circumcising of the whole nation

was finished, they remained in their place in the camp until

they were healed. That might take a beat.

And the Lord said to Joshua, Today, I have rolled away the

reproach of Egypt from you. And so the name of that place is

called Gilgal to this day. It means to roll away, to roll

away their approach. So I don't know if you know this

or not, but an adult man who receives circumcision needs the

weekend off. Like that's not something you

want to do and then go dancing as a as an example.

You don't want to do that. So I just want you to see that

right before the battle in a sight of all of the enemy who's

already terrified, God has his people, his army perform an

action that will mean all of the fighting men are down for many,

many days. And it's marvelous, right, that

God would God, our enemies are watching.

The last thing we want to do is show weakness.

They're afraid. Let's charge.

And he says, no, I want you to do something that that is going

to make you very weak. If you remember in your old, in,

in the book of Genesis, God's Jacob's sons do this to the men

of Shechem. They say, hey, we, we, you can,

they, they took their sister and so they say you can marry her if

you're all circumcised. They do that.

And on the third day while they're laid up recovering, 2

guys come in and kill the entire village.

This is a weakening, A weakening thing that God commands his

people to do in this exact moment.

So if you were planning conquest, this would straight up

be the very last thing that you would do.

You would never do this to ensure that all of your army

cannot move for three days and that the enemy knows this.

The enemy is going to watch this.

This is like many of other gods of God's war strategies.

It seems absurd and you can hear the realist, right?

Save your prayers, armies. Wars are won with soldiers.

So. So don't give me the covenant

renewal. Don't give me prayer as a

strategy for war. Don't give me getting right with

God as a strategy for war. You need soldiers.

Well, as absurd as this may sound, this is exactly what God

had Joshua do. And He did it because He wanted

Israel then and us now to know it in our souls that it is not

to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name.

Give glory. Some may trust in Chariots and

some may trust in horses, but we will trust in the name of the

Lord our God. Brothers and sisters, we can

embrace anything that God commands that makes us feel

weak. We can embrace anything because

His strength is made perfect in weakness.

You can imagine, you can imagine all of the people coming to

Joshua and saying, do we have to do it now?

Let's, let's go win some fights first.

Do we have to weaken ourselves? Now don't miss the purpose of

this weakness that God inflicted upon the men of Israel.

It was to put them into their covenant strength.

So let me explain this. Genesis 17.

God had commanded Abraham that all of his male offspring should

be circumcised on the eighth day of their lives, and that this

circumcision would be a sign of belonging to the covenant of

grace. And for sure, later on, Israel

eventually turned that circumcision into what they saw

as a covenant of works, as though if you just do the right

things, you'll get the right result.

And that's obviously not the case.

But it was not. Circumcision was not given as a

covenant of works. It was given as a covenant of

grace. Circumcision was an objective

action that incorporated people into the covenant community.

They just showed it, marked them out as you.

You belong in the community of God's people, and that community

was formed by God's grace, not by man's doing.

And so for thousands of years, there were two types of people

that received the sign of circumcision.

You had, First off, the children of people inside the covenant,

all of them were supposed to be circumcised on the eighth day.

And then you had strangers who were born outside but saw the

goodness in the grace of God and wanted in.

They would be circumcised and then they would be counted in

the in the community. So you have two groups of people

that received the sign so and the scriptures tell us that any

circumcised male in a stranger's house was welcome to partake of

all the things that were available to natural sons.

And the chief of those blessings was the Passover.

So it's important for us to see that was the command, everybody,

you're to circumcise your son on the 8th day.

But here we have a whole generation of Israelites that

haven't been circumcised. We should ask why?

Why did they not obey this faithless generation, the one

who saw the Exodus, though they had been circumcised themselves,

they didn't circumcise their children, which is why Joshua

had to do it when they reached the promised land.

And this is a shame, right? Because circumcision puts the

marks of the covenant of grace on your children and then you

get to raise them up in the faith.

And they had withheld this from their kids.

God insisted on children of the covenant being put inside the

covenant at 8 days old through no choice of the child.

He didn't say wait till they grow up and accept it.

You just do it and you raise them in the faith.

All of this to highlight the sovereign nature of the

salvation of our God. And because of him, Paul tells

us you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God,

righteousness and sanctification and redemption.

So that as it is written, let the one who boasts boasts in the

Lord. Yes, you must boast, but your

boast is in the Lord because you have everything you have is

because of your identity, your your union with Christ.

And Paul just told you that the only reason you're in union with

Christ is because he put you there.

So he gets all the glory, you get all the joy.

So the first order of business for Joshua is for the second

generation down from the exodus to be to put right what their

parents got wrong, to perform the duty that their parents

neglected, the duty of circumcision.

They needed to bear the sign of the covenant before they

conquered, before they converted, or before they killed

anybody in the promised land. And this is massively important,

mainly because as Christians, sometimes we get a false notion

that God is a God who will bless the good and he'll curse the

bad. And it's fundamentally not true.

God is not a God who blesses the good and curses the bad.

In reality, God has always been a God who blesses with his

covenant grace the bad people that are in covenant with him

because that's all there are. News flash, it's all we have is

sinners in covenant with God or sinners not in covenant with

God. And God has always been the God

who blesses bad people who are in covenant with Christ.

You say true and I say thank you and God curses the the

unconverted who refused to be in covenant with Christ and you can

set your watching warrant on it. It is God's grace and mercy that

matter here ultimately, not your performance and not mine.

God is not at our good pleasure, we exist at His but, but the

means of covenant belonging really matter to Him.

The way you come into covenant with God really matters to God.

So it is a true statement worthy of all acceptance that we are

justified by grace alone through faith alone and Christ alone for

God's glory alone. And there's no but coming to

that sentence, that's just true and full stop foundational fact.

We are justified by grace alone, through faith alone in Christ

alone. And and the God who taught us

that through Christ also said that we should fear the Lord and

keep his commandments. Does our, does our obedience

matter? Of course it does.

We're not saved by it, We're saved by faith.

But our obedience does matter. So it means Christian obedience,

like baptism is not negotiable. It's not a take or leave thing.

It's been commanded and so we carry it out.

You cannot not do it. So let me ask you, can an

unbaptized person be eternally saved?

Can somebody who who hasn't been baptized be eternally saved?

There's no question about it. The answer is of course, of

course they can. The thief on the cross was never

made wet with the waters of the triune name.

He's never baptized. On the other hand, can a man who

sleeps on his baptism, or would rather not like I, I don't know,

it's just, it's weird. I don't really want to do it.

I'm fine with Jesus. I love Jesus, but I just don't

want to obey him. Can he claim to be a Christian

answer? Absolutely not because Christ

has commanded it. And if you love Christ, if you

believe in him, if you've been justified by grace through

faith, you do what he says. And so baptism isn't is is very

important. It's not a saving thing, but it

is an obedience thing that that shows that you are walking under

the lordship of Christ. So God help the Baptist, and I

know this because I used to be 1.

Many of them are so backward in the way that they view the

sacraments because they haven't seen the pattern that the Old

Testament sets for the Church. So a lot of Baptists will

withhold the sign of covenant belonging, the sign of baptism.

But then they'll, they'll bring their kids to the Lord's Table

and, and listen, that's just if it was done.

And if you've ever done this and you did it in innocence, which

is totally fine, you didn't know any better, There's no, I don't

think there's judgment for you. Be of good cheer.

The Lord always overlooks our sincerely motivated errors.

But listen to me, that's an error.

You can't, you can't do that. Don't do that.

It would be like a man saying that it doesn't really matter

which comes first, birth or breastfeeding.

There is a distinct order, birth and then sustenance, baptism,

then Lord's Supper. So if you look at the text,

we'll see it in a second. What immediately follows the

circumcision of the nation is the celebration of the Passover

that they kept for the very first time since the Passover.

They were supposed to keep the Passover every year, remembering

what God did in Egypt. They had not kept it since they

left Egypt. The rule given in Exodus 12 was

as clear as crystal. Listen, all the congregation of

Israel shall keep the Passover, and if a stranger shall sojourn

with you and would keep it with you, let all his males be

circumcised, and then he may come near and keep it, and he

shall be as a native of the land, but no uncircumcised

person shall eat of it. There shall be one law for the

native and the stranger who sojourns among you.

So when we read in Joshua 5 that Israel had not been practicing

circumcision in the wilderness, we can conclude with authority

that they had also not been keeping the Passover, because

you can't do the second without the first.

You can't keep the Passover unless you've been circumcised.

So not only were they not circumcising their children,

they weren't welcoming them to the covenant feasts.

You can't Make Love to your wife until you have a wife.

You couldn't keep the Passover to the Lord until you had a

Lord, until you were circumcised.

And therefore you can't come to the Lord's table until you have

the Lord as your Lord, through repentance and through faith and

through baptism, you can't do it.

So as the Lord Jesus commands us to be baptized and then you come

to the table. So the second action of

preparation in this text circumcision first, which puts

them in covenant right covenant fellowship with the Lord.

The second action is the Passover.

Read it really quick with me in in 10 and 12 verses 10 through

12 while the people of Israel were in camped at Gilgal.

They kept the Passover on the 14th day of the month in the

evening on the plains of Jericho.

And the day after the Passover, on that very day, they ate of

the produce of the land, unleavened cakes and parched

grain and the manna ceased. It's very important phrase, the

manna ceased the day after they ate of the produce of the land.

And there was no longer manna for the people of Israel, but

they ate of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year.

OK, so circumcision and then Passover.

Now there's a detail here that's a really important that I want

to point out to you. It says that the manna ceased

the day after they ate the produce of the land.

So from this time forward there was no more manna to come to

God's people. And so manna had been a a

miraculous provision for a particular people for a

particular season. And so we should point out that

it's that it's not for us to make normative something that

was UN normative. Does that make sense?

Most of the people of God have never tasted manna.

It was given to particular people in a particular season

and it it is abnormal. So we don't want to make that

normative for the Christian life.

And so let me ask you, could God have continued to feed his

people with manna? The answer is, of course, it

wasn't hard for him. He can still do anything that he

wants down to our day. We could have been feasting on

manna, but he didn't want to do that.

He had better plans. So I'm not going to fight

anybody on this, but it's important that I point this out

to you. When we read the book of Acts

and we see God doing amazing things through the hands of the

apostles, signs, wonders, tongues, prophecy, all of these

things. The reality is we read some of

those things and don't don't think carefully about how and

why God is giving those things and we make those normative.

Certain denominations will say, if you have not spoken in

tongues, you have not received the Holy Spirit.

That is a lie from hell. That's not true.

It is not normative Paul Paul even says do all of you does

everyone speak in tongues? Not everyone speaks in tongues,

does he and the obvious answer is no.

Not everyone prophecies, does he and the obvious answer is no.

So these were things given at a particular time for a particular

purpose in a particular season. And we ought not read the book

of Acts and say I I don't see that worked out in my life.

Therefore I must be off. Don't don't do that.

It's they're, they're, they're non normative gifts now

question, can God still do those things today?

You better say, yes, of course he can.

God can do anything he wants to do.

We just want to be careful to, to not make normative those

things that are not given in the Scripture as normative things.

So the manna was for a season and then it ceased when they got

into the promised land and God raised them up into better,

better things. So in response to crossing into

the Promised Land and in preparation for the conquest of

Canaan, Israel renewed their covenant with the Lord by being

circumcised, the covenant sign of the the sign of covenant

belonging, and then by celebrating Passover, which is

the sign of continued covenant sustenance of the Lord.

So the two counter signs in the new covenant, the counter sign,

the circumcision is baptism and the counter sign to Passover is

completed by Lord's Supper. Both of those signs are, this is

essential. They are not replaced, they are

completed. We don't do them anymore.

We don't keep, we don't, we don't have to circumcise our

sons anymore and we don't have to keep the whole Seder meal and

dress up in the funny clothes like Hasidic Jews.

We don't have to do that because those things were shadows and

the full completion has come. And so now we have a bloodless

sacrament. We baptize our children and we

baptize the stranger who wants to be a part of God's people.

And we have not a full Passover, but all of it summed up in the

bread and the cup that Christ says, Do this in remembrance of

me. But there's a third, and there's

a final act, and it is glorious. And it comes both again as a

response to what has come before and as a preparation for what is

about to come, for the battle of Jericho and the conquest of the

land. And this action is the arrival

of what is the most glorious person in all of the Bible.

He's going to come right here. So watch this in verse 13, when

Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes, it's very important

phrase, and looked and behold, he's calling your attention.

There's something magic is about to go on.

He lifted up his eyes. He looked and behold, a man.

This brings you to Genesis 18. I'll explain that to you in a

moment. A man was standing before him

with his drawn sword in his hand.

And Joshua went to him and said to him, Are you for us or for

our adversaries? And tremble at these words.

And he said, no. Are you for us?

Are you for our enemies? No, no, no, I am the commander

of the army of Yahweh. And now I have come.

And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and he worshipped him

and said to him, What does my Lord say to his servant?

And what happens when any creature, be it Angel, priest,

leader, when any creature has another creature fall and do

homage to them, what do they always say straight away?

No, get up. I'm a a creature like you.

I'm a servant like you. Don't do this.

Don't worship me. Watch what this man says.

What does my Lord say to his servant?

Says the lesser, the lesser Joshua to the greatest Joshua.

And in verse 15, the commander of Yahweh's army said to Joshua,

take off your sandals from your feet, for the place where you

are standing is holy. And Joshua did so.

It is not enough that Joshua is on his face before Christ, you

must take your shoes off, because this man is a holy,

holy, holy man. This is God in the flesh, our

Lord and our Christ. And let us all tremble at His

name. So in Genesis 18, the same

phrase is used. Abraham is sitting in his tent

and it says when Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, behold,

he saw three men. So it's the very same phrase.

Anybody who who who tracks well with details in the text is

going to go, oh, that reminds me of Abraham.

Abraham lifts up his eyes, he looks and he sees the most

glorious person in the entire Bible walking with two other

mints. It looks like three men.

But as the text unfolds, you realize it's Yahweh and it's 2

angels. And the angels by comparison to

this one man are not even worthy of mention next to this guy.

They were not even worthy because the man was none other

than Yahweh in the flesh. He's also called the Angel of

the Lord who is Christ Himself. And obviously these verses take

us back as well. The Exodus chapter 3.

Exodus 3 · chapter mention

Listen to these words. I just want you to see the fire

here and the glory. Moses was keeping the flock of

his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian.

He led his flock to the West side of the wilderness and came

to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the Angel of the Lord

appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a Bush.

OK, so you have the Angel of the Lord who is appearing to Moses

in in a fire that's in a Bush. And Moses looked and behold the

Bush was burning but was not yet consumed, but yet was not

consumed. And Moses said, I will turn

aside to see this great sight. Why the Bush is not burned.

When Yahweh saw that Moses turned aside to see God called

to him out of the Bush. Wait a second, I thought it was

the Angel of the Lord that was appearing to Moses inside the

Bush. And now Yahweh is calling to

Moses from the Bush. What is going on?

The every single time in the Old Testament you see a man that is

called the Angel of the Lord, that is Christ himself.

And this man says to Moses, Moses, Moses.

And he said, here I am. And he said, do not come near.

Take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you're

standing is holy ground. And he said, I am the God of

your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of

Jacob. And Moses hid his face, for he

was afraid to look at God. This is Christ himself.

There's one other text that I want to read you that that

fulfills all of these things. This is John in the Book of

Revelation. He says, I turn to see the voice

that was speaking to me. And on turning I saw 7 golden

lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of

man, clothed with a long robe and a golden sash around his

chest. The hairs of his head were white

like white wool like snow. And his eyes were like a flame

of fire, and his feet like burnished bronze refining a

furnace. And his voice was like the roar

of many waters in his right hand.

Think about this. Joshua sees a man, and what is

he holding? It's a sword.

This is the same man. What is he holding in his right

hand? I'll give you a hint, it ain't a

sword in his right hand. Watch the change.

He held the seven stars, 77 liters of seven churches.

And then it says from his mouth came a sharp 2 edged sword, and

his face was like the sun shining in full strength.

Post resurrection and ascension, Christ no longer bears a

physical sword like he did in Joshua's day.

The sword comes out of his mouth, and it's the sword that

converts people, converts his enemies, right?

He does more converting than killing in the New covenant.

And so he's got the sword of his, the sword of his mouth, the

sword of his word. And there's no accident that

Joshua here hears the same command as Moses because he is

in the presence of the very same God whose name is Christ the

Lord. The presence of our Christ makes

the very ground on which he stands untouchably holy.

And so Joshua is now met face to face with the greater Joshua.

There are two things that Joshua the greater says to Joshua the

lesser that I want to do nothing but marvel at with you.

I'm not going to. There's there will be no there

for there will just be an attempt to help you marvel at

what Jesus says. Joshua the lesser quote, Are you

for us or for our adversaries? Joshua, the greatest?

No, no, no. Whose side are you on?

No, we might ask, what do you mean?

Jesus, aren't you for us? Aren't you on our side?

And the answer that Christ would give us is gloriously No, I'm

not, I'm not on your side. Listen to me, brother and

sister, Jesus Christ is not on your side.

So we might say, horror of horrors, are you then for our

enemies, for our adversaries, to itchy answers?

No, I'm not for them either. So we ask, OK then Lord, if

you're not on our side and you're not on their side, whose

side are you on? To which he says mine.

The only side that matters is mine, the side of Christ.

I'm the commander of the army of Yahweh.

And so you, Joshua the lesser, are welcome to be on my side.

I would love for you to be on my side, but I am not on yours.

You can be on mine. It is only my side that matters,

says the Lord Christ. Jesus doesn't join us in our

fight as we fight our fights for our ends with our best means.

Instead, much more wonderfully, he summons us to join in His

fight, and He promises His presence, His provision, His

victory when we fight with His weapons in His ways, for His

purposes, He will not be on your side.

He will not do it, but you can be on his glory to God on high.

We can be on the side of Christ. Blessed be his name forever.

So name him, brothers, Name him with love as strong as death,

but with awe and wonder and baited breath.

He is God the Savior. He is Christ the Lord, ever to

be worshipped and trusted and adored.

He's not on your side, but you can be on his.

God be praised. I've got a word that I'm not

going to give you the answer to for another couple of weeks, but

I want you to think on it and I want it to echo in your mind as

you think about Joshua and you think about the story for weeks

to come. I want you to think about this.

Are you for us? Are you for your, for our

adversaries? And his answer is no.

That means something. And it's going to, it's going to

become clear in the book of Joshua.

I just want you to think on it. I want you to dwell on it and

I'll give it to you sometime, but you got to wait.

Secondly, the second thing that the greater Joshua says that

we've got to marvel at, he says, now I have come.

What does that mean? Did you see that?

No, I'm the commander of the army of the Lord of Yahweh.

Now I have come. Joshua the Lesser received the

promise from Joshua the Greatest that he has come, and he's come

in such a way to indicate that this man has come to remain in

the fight. You will search the book of

Joshua in vain to find the text that says I have come and now I

am going. He doesn't do that.

He comes to stay and to stay in the fight.

It's not a pat on the back. And they return to heavenly

glory. I have come and I will be with

you to the end of the age and give you victory.

I hope that sounds familiar. So I ask you, brothers and

sisters, if this man, this glorious God would deign to let

us be with him on his side and and delight Himself to be with

us and to give us what He has promised, what possible work in

this world could be too difficult for the people of God?

What could you possibly imagine would be too difficult if this

man is is with us, or rather, if we are with this man on his

side, what could be too difficult?

Brothers and sisters, we've been baptized into covenant union

with our Triune God, and He intends to feed us now at His

table so that we can know for good and all that this Lord

Jesus Christ, the Commander of the Lord's army, has come.

He has come to us. He has come to give us a

victory. We are his people.

We are on His side. We have received His grace and

His mercy. We are on His mission, fighting

his fight with his weapons in His ways, waiting for his

victory to be enjoyed marvellously through our hands.

If there was ever a communion text that is not a communion

text, this is it. So feel free to take your

sandals off, for the Lord of hosts is with us here at the

table. And therefore this is holy

ground, because Christ the Lord is here.

Come to the Holy One of Israel. Come to our God and to our King.

Come to the lion of the tribe of Judah, who was worthy to take

the scroll and has opened the seals.

Come to him who stands as a lamb slain, yet raised to dominion.

Come to him who was dead, but who lives forever more.

Come to the one who holds the keys of death and hell.

Come to that self, same Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Good

Shepherd, who calls his own sheep by name.

Come brothers and sisters, and welcome to Jesus Christ.

Let me pray for us. Lord, would you do for us what

you did for Joshua in a greater way?

Would you draw near to us as we come to your table, as we eat

this bread and drink the cup, remembering that this is your

body broken for us, your blood shed for the forgiveness of our

sins, and that we do this in remembrance of you?

And when we eat the bread and when we drink the cup, we

participate in the body of Christ.

Lord, these are holy things. Would you draw near to us?

Would you? Would you put us in awe of your

presence and then comfort us with the gospel that because of

what Jesus has done on our behalf, we can actually be

received here? So Lord, we pray that you would

pour out your spirit and that He would make this table

efficacious to us and comfort us in it.

We ask it in His name, Amen.