Remember The Stones Of The Memorial

Well, hallelujah, he's good, isn't he?

Praise his name, look what he's done.

Anybody ever been touched and healed

by the hand of the Lord?

How many remember when he picked you up

and cleaned you up and put you on a rock to stay?

Amen, you got that testimony saved?

How many redeemed to the hand of the Lord this morning?

Well, give him a good praise offering, would you?

Hallelujah.

Amen, so good to see you in the house of the Lord.

Be turning with me to the book of Psalms, chapter 61.

Psalms 61 · chapter mention

Psalm 61, gonna be our launch pad this morning.

Psalm 61, anytime you see me break out this color of paper,

you know the Lord been talking to me this morning

because it hadn't made it to TypeScript,

so this is the handwritten, I call them the scrolls.

Yeah, and with the breeze, it's blowing.

It's liable to be out there

where you're at here in just a minute.

We're gonna take our launch today from Psalm 61,

but also before I read scripture this morning

and we go to the Lord in prayer,

remember Brother Ron Wood, Brother Al,

his father passed away this weekend,

so remember, remember Brother Ron

as they are making arrangements this morning.

They'll be traveling to South Georgia

for the burial this week,

so they got a long, hard week ahead of them,

so remember, remember them in your prayers.

Also remember Brother Ledford,

he needs a touch in his body today

as he's battling some sickness.

And remember Brother Doug Simpson this morning,

who's sick, needs a touch from the Lord.

As we read our text this morning from Psalms 61,

just a few verses here, it's a short text

but I'm not gonna read it all.

Hear my cry, O God, attend unto my prayer.

From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee

when my heart is overwhelmed.

Lead me to the rock that is higher than I,

for thou hast been my shelter for me

and a strong tower from the enemy.

A man, that's so rich right there, isn't it?

Lead me to the rock that's higher than I,

I wanna preach to us on this memorial weekend,

on this simple thought.

Remember the stone of the memorials.

Remember the stones of the memorial.

Amen.

Let's see what the Spirit of the Lord has to say to us today.

Father, we love you, we thank you for your goodness

and your mercy and the abundance of your grace and love.

I thank you for your grace and your love.

In the abundance of your grace and love,

I ask God that you would be with us as you are already.

Draw even more near to us, close to us,

sweet heavenly Father.

And Lord, as we encounter your goodness and your mercy

and your grace and the power of your word,

Lord, let us leave here enriched by it,

strengthened through it,

overcomers by it, in Christ's holy name.

And the church said, amen.

Okay, you neighbor, let's remember the stones.

Some of you just had a flash of a kidney stone.

Yeah, I knew it, I knew it, I felt that.

I thought somebody just thought, I remember that stone.

Brother David, it's gonna take a few minutes

for him to get back here with us.

On this Memorial Day weekend,

when we think about memorial,

it's a call to remember.

That's what memorials are for.

They are placed, dotted throughout our landscape,

which calls us to remember.

For our nation, we need to be reminded

and we need to remember.

For this weekend tomorrow, especially as a day

where we take into account the sum 1.3 million lives

of servicemen who died on active duty.

Some 646, 47,000 of them lost their lives in battle.

Another 540,000 lost their lives in service

in non-combat situations.

For the church, a call to remember

that 13 Christians are killed daily around the world.

At least 13 a day.

Some 5,000 believers a year lose their life

in the service for the Lord, simply because of their faith.

When we stop to think about this, we cannot forget.

As we look around the landscape from coast to coast,

we have the Vietnam Memorial to remind us

of a nation's call to remember.

We have the latest monuments for the World War II

servicemen and women who lost their lives to remind us.

We cannot forget the price that was paid

for the liberty that we have this morning,

for this liberty.

Thousands, millions around the world are able

to exercise liberties that they would not have

been privileged to had it not been for those

500 plus thousand men and women who gave their life

in combat, 600 plus thousand that gave their life

around the continents so that people could have

freedom from tyranny.

Amen?

So we can't forget that.

For people of God, we can't forget the scores of millions

that have died since Christ's birth and death.

Millions, tens of millions have died because of their faith

in Christ and their acceptance of Christ as Lord

and Savior and the Son of the living God.

Millions of fellow brothers and sisters

have given up their life.

Think about that, we think that's over.

We let our minds go to the Roman Coliseums

and the lions devouring their bodies

and we think that is martyrdom.

But people are dying today.

13 people around this world will die today

because of their faith in Jesus Christ.

I don't know about you but that seems

such a foreign thought to me.

It's hard for me to grasp that idea

until you get around the world and you see the oppression

that the world brings against.

So I am grateful and thankful that I live in a nation

where I can express my freedom and worship of Jesus Christ.

Amen?

So as people of God, we have to be reminded,

Deuteronomy 6 and 12, we see Moses reminding the Israelites.

He's telling them to beware lest you forget the Lord

who brought you up out of the land of Egypt

from the hands of bondage.

Jeremiah 18, 15, the prophet reminded the people

because my people have forgotten me, the Lord said.

Why?

They're about to be carried away into captivity

because they had forgotten the Lord.

Earlier in Jeremiah, I was writing

second chapter 32nd verse, can a bride forget her attire?

Yet my people have forgotten me days without number.

I would think and from what we read

and this is just a very scratch of the surface,

God desires relationship with us,

I think at a greater level than many of us desire with him.

It was his heart who was broken

because his people had gone astray.

It was he who was devastated because they had forgotten him

and he's actually numbering the days, days without end.

They have forgotten me and turned away from me.

But if they would just be reminded, amen, of who

and how faithful God is and God had been for their lives,

then they would live in the fullness

of the blessings of God throughout Israel's history,

throughout our nation's history.

There are stone monuments resurrected all over the landscape

that remind us of where we have been

and to be reminded that we don't wanna go back

that way again.

There is, and you've heard me say it before,

there's an attack on monuments in our society

because of what it reminds people of.

But you wanna tell some people, duh,

that's what it's there for.

It's supposed to offend you.

It's supposed to remind us of our offenses

against each other and remind us of our offenses

against God and we're not to go back by that way.

If our landscape is removed of our memorials,

how will our children know what has taken place

in our history?

They're sure not gonna get a good dose of it in school.

I can tell you that right now.

But when we're driving across the landscape,

you can drive around Cleveland and you'll see monuments

that mark the history of our city and of this town.

And it would behoove us to know it would behoove me

to stop and to learn about some of the history

that has taken place here so that we might not repeat

some of it and that we might repeat other forms of it.

They're not all bad.

Some of our memorials are there to mark reminders

of the goodness of humanity.

Amen?

Of the goodness of humanity.

But yet there are the others that are on the landscape

to remind us we do not want to repeat these offenses again

because thousands died and bled here.

Think about a Gettysburg monument.

The 50 plus thousand men that died there at Gettysburg

in battle because of the atrocities of humanity

against each other.

Amen?

We don't want to go back by that way again,

but if you were to remove all the memorials

and you try to displace the history,

then history will inevitably repeat itself.

And so with us as believers,

we have to be reminded of where the stones are.

The stones are memorials.

They are placed for reminders.

And so I found a few stones that we want to talk about

before we, I'm gonna try not to be too lengthy

so we can get on about today.

You know we wouldn't be lengthy if we was outside.

15 minutes, we'd been already eating hamburger.

But we're in here today,

and it's gonna be a little bit more than 15 minutes

before you get your burger.

Amen?

Because the Lord has stirred me today to remind the church

that we need to remember the stones of the memorials

of our lives and of our history and of our faith.

The people of God must be reminded.

So what I want to look at first of all

is the teaching of the stones.

The first stone we'll find is in Joshua chapter four,

after the Jordan crossing,

after they pick up their 12 stones,

after the faithfulness of God over the Israelite people,

after Jordan has stood at attention on the right

and on the left and they have crossed over,

Joshua gets an instruction from the Lord.

Pick you out 12 men, tell them to go back out

where the priests were standing holding the ark,

where my presence is,

I want them to pick up a stone and bring it back,

and I want you to erect it together,

put it together, pile it one upon another,

and make a memorial of it there.

And so the teaching aspect comes in this,

and I can see Joshua saying,

God, why do we need to do that?

Good question, Joshua.

This is what I want you to tell the people,

that in the future when your children are passing by

and they're coming by the banks of the Jordan

and they see these stones stacked up

and they're gonna ask you, what meaneth these stones?

And here's what I want you to tell them,

I want you to remind them of the 400 years of bondage

that I delivered them from.

I want you to remind them of all of the aspects

of that deliverance, remind them of the 10 plagues

that were in Egypt, you tell them,

you remind them of Moses who stood at a burning bush

and heard my voice and my declaration, I am that I am.

You remind them that's what these stones stand for.

You remind them of the 40 years of rebellion

when you didn't do what I instructed you to do.

You remind them that they had to walk around for 40 years

and waiting till we come back to this full circle,

if you will, to get to these stones.

You remind the children that while they marched

for 40 years, their clothes didn't grow old,

their shoes grew with their feet.

You remind them that manna fell,

that I fed them every single day

that they were in the wilderness.

You remind them that it wasn't just manna,

but fowl fell out of the air,

quail would be at their feet

and so that they would have me.

You remind them of the rock

that followed them through the wilderness

and the water come out of it every day.

Even though they were in a dry, thirsty,

barren wilderness that I watered and I fed

and they had fresh supply every day,

they didn't pick up a week's worth on Monday,

they had fresh supply.

Can I preach to somebody today?

I'm here to remind you that you've got a fresh supply

every single day.

Tell your children that I was with them.

You remind them that when Aaron and her

sustained the hands of Moses,

when he's tired of interceding for them,

that I swayed the battle, hallelujah.

You let them know that I was with you.

Tell your children the law that I have commanded you.

Don't forget the stones of Jordan.

They are there for their teaching and their instruction.

My Lord, we talked a little bit about the anchors

of Pentecost last week.

I could have saved that for stones of Pentecost.

Amen, we need to remind our church today

of the power that God has promised

and the provision that he is making on our behalf,

on your behalf, the battles that he's interceding for,

the healing that he tied for.

We need to tell our children not only the testimonies

of yesteryear, but I think they need to see the power

and the manifestation of God in their day

as they are walking about.

When they come into church, may it be they

who had to pick up a stone and make a memorial

so that they'll always be reminded.

They can never forget the goodness of God.

That's what it was all about.

That's what it was all about, it's the teaching stone,

the goodness of God that they would not fail to remember

that there was a shadow of a cloud by day,

but there was a fire to illuminate by night.

They never wondered they were led.

Can I get a witness right there?

They didn't, some people think they wandered

through the wilderness.

They did not wander through the wilderness, they were led.

They didn't move until the cloud moved.

Can I get a witness in the house?

They didn't move until the cloud went for it.

Wherever the cloud stood still, they pitched camp.

They laid out the camp the way God ordered the camp

to be laid out and they waited for it to move, hallelujah.

One of my favorite stories and a message I preached

many, many years ago, what happens when the wheels fall off?

You remind your children of the day when Pharaoh's army

was catching up to them and God dispatched an angelic pit

crew and took every wheel off every chariot

until they drug in the sand.

My God, what a story to be reminded that God dispatched

an angel and the angels took the wheels off of the chariot

until they drug in the sand.

I love that story.

It's a teaching moment, it's a learning moment for us

that nothing is too difficult

nor too outlandish in our thinking for God

but do on our behalf.

So you got a teaching stone.

Second stone I wanna look at this morning

for a little while is that witness stone.

Woo, we need a witness stone.

The stone of the witness, right?

The stone of the witness you'll read about

in First Samuel seven.

It's after Eli the priest has died

and the Ark of the Covenant had been carried away,

they'd went and got the Ark.

It's been now 20 years at Abinadab's place.

Now I don't believe them, this is another story.

Abinadab had took it to his house

and he had anointed and placed his son Eleazar

to watch over the Ark.

And it had been there for 20 years.

And Samuel comes before the people,

they're under the bondage of the Philistines

and he reminds the people,

hey, you need to turn back to God.

You remember what God told us, you remember what God said

and if you'll repent, God will be on our side.

And lo and behold, they told Samuel,

we're gonna quit serving the gods of the Asherah poles

and Balaam and we're gonna turn back to God.

But they said this, when the Philistines heard about it

and they began to gather around to make war against Israel,

the people come to Samuel said,

would you continue to entreat the Lord for us?

What does that mean, pastor?

Will you keep on praying?

Will you keep on seeking God?

Will you keep on crying out to God for us

because we are afraid of what the enemy

is coming against us to do?

And Samuel kept on praying and he heard from the Lord

and when the Philistines come up against him

to make battle, the scripture says

that the Lord thundered with a great thunder

and he disconfitted the enemy.

Can I tell somebody today,

if you'll just keep on interceding,

if you'll just keep on praying,

when the enemy comes up against you,

God will be a witness to you.

God will witness against your situation.

If he has to thunder a great thunder,

if he has to send down an angel to take the wheels off,

it doesn't matter, he'll do whatever is necessary

to redeem you, to restore you, to refresh you,

to deliver you.

So he done exactly what needed

and so it's there after this encounter

that he recognizes, Samuel recognizes

that God has heard us and he's helped us.

So he raises up a stone and he calls it the Ebenezer stone.

Ebenezer, which means the Lord has helped.

The Lord has helped.

Now, every time an Israelite from later on would come by

and they'd see that stack of stones standing up,

what does that mean?

Well, it's Ebenezer.

That means it was here that the Lord heard

and the Lord showed up and helped.

Now, God, somebody needs to get an Ebenezer stone ready.

You need to start gathering up some things

to raise up a memorial because God is about to answer.

You're praying, you're interceding.

You need to know this today that we intercede for you.

Sister Kathy and I pray for you on a daily basis.

We ask God to help you so you don't have to worry

about your Samuel figure praying for you because we are.

We're calling out to God on your behalf.

We're asking God to comfort you.

We're asking God to deliver you.

We're asking God to add the peace of his grace in your life.

We're crying on a daily basis.

So I'm getting a stone ready.

Every time a testimony comes of deliverance in your life,

I put one more stone on it because I have remembered

the memorial of the stone of Ebenezer

that the Lord has heard and the Lord has helped.

Hallelujah.

It's the stone of the witness,

the witness of God's help, the witness of God's grace.

Hitherto the Lord has helped us.

Anybody been helped of the Lord lately?

I guarantee you I have.

I'm standing here this morning.

Had the Lord not heard and helped,

I probably wouldn't be standing here preaching

like I'm preaching this morning.

He's heard and I'm polishing up my Ebenezer stone

as a witness to the faithfulness of God

and the goodness of God's grace.

Third stone to mention this morning

is the stone of inspiration.

The stone of inspiration.

Back to that Joshua 4 declaration of those 12 stones.

In the 24th verse, Joshua told them, said that

the reason these stones are going up,

as if you might fear the Lord your God forever.

That's an inspirational statement.

I want you to stack up these stones

and I want you to tell your children

why they are there when you walk by.

Matter of fact, you might order to go out of your way

and take them by.

Hello?

It'd be good, I love it that our kids are in this service

every once in a while.

Why?

Because they need to see the stones.

There's a day coming they're not gonna hear,

they're not gonna hear a preacher throw it down

like your fat preacher does.

It's slowly moving away.

This style of ministering the gospel slowly moving by.

They're gonna come a day they'll go

and they'll not hear the drive of the preaching of the word.

I hate to say that but it's so you can look around you.

Thank for the Lord has sent us some folks our way

to help carry on the mantle.

Amen?

Okay, carry on the mantle.

I've said over the years there's a little bit

of every pastor that I sat under in my ministry.

I wish there were a few more ingredients of a few of them

than some of the major ingredients I got from the others.

Amen.

The stone of inspiration, we need to be inspired

by the memorials that are left around us.

We need to be stirred in our heart

that we may never forget the Lord.

That fear of the Lord is not to be just hiding

in a corner covered up to be away from God,

to be scared of God.

It's to be in awe of God.

It's to revere God that you'll always revere him

and that you'll always allot him

and that you will always have honor for him.

Amen, that you will always stand in awe of him.

I think sometimes we throw that word awesome around

just a little bit too much

because there's only one awesome one and that is God.

There's some good things on this earth,

but there's only one that I truly stand in awe of

and who is awesome, the sum total of all

and that is God himself.

And that's what Joshua is telling me.

I want you to stand in awe in reverence to God

and always have that fear, that godly fear

that is in and over your life.

Always knowing that he is high and lifted up

and he's on the throne of eternity and he is your creator.

He is the author and the finisher of all

that is in your life.

I want you to stand in awe of him forever.

Amen.

Look at our culture today.

There's only one way that people could act the way they do

and why they act the way they do

is because they have lost any fear of God.

When we were children my age and back,

if anybody even had an idea of desecrating a cemetery,

they were in fear.

Right?

Desecrate, even most vile sinners wouldn't desecrate

the church unless it was a Pentecostal church

and he's trying to blow them up and burn them down.

But that was just because of conviction.

Hello?

Just because of conviction, the devil stir them up.

A lot of those that lit the fuses and lit the matches

ended up getting saved, fighting to fill the oligos

and regretted doing what they did.

But it's a good thing to have a reverent fear of God.

It brings a positive effect to our lives,

benefits from the fear of the Lord.

Proverbs nine and 10 says,

the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

10 27, it adds length to our life.

Proverbs two and five, the fear of the Lord

helps us gain knowledge of God.

Proverbs 14 26, the fear of the Lord brings strength

and confidence because of who God is.

Proverbs 16 and six, it'll cause you to depart from evil.

The fear of the Lord.

Proverbs 22 and four, the benefit is this,

it will bring in riches and honor and long life.

The fear of the Lord.

Why?

Because if you're in awe of him and reverence to him,

you'll do everything in your strength

to keep from offending him.

Amen?

Because people have said in their heart these days,

there is no God, then evil begins to reign

and run rampant across the land.

And I've told you before, you know,

the reason that they want the removal

of the 10 commandments from sight,

from school, from court, from any other place,

because it brings man into the accountability

that there is one who sits in judgment over all.

Amen?

And they're not on a bench in a courtroom,

but he's on the throne of heaven.

Hallelujah.

And on earth is his footstool.

And there is a reminder there because of conviction

that God is always watching and he sees all.

And that there is a reckoning day coming.

Oh, let me remind you today,

there's a reckoning day coming.

And that's the reason that we need to have a fear

and an awe and be inspired by that

so that we do not offend God.

Amen?

Do not sin against him.

That's why we raise up our children

in the way that they should go.

That one day, after they strive after him in their youth,

that they might not sin against him.

Amen?

And that's why we have the reminders

of the memorials that dot the landscape

throughout the scripture.

That we know that there is a God

who sits high on the throne.

Amen?

And that he is the one who watches over

the stone of inspiration.

Be the stone of Gilgal,

where the reproach was rolled away

and a stone was raised up in Gilgal.

The reproach has been rolled away.

So we have that stone of inspiration.

And then the final stone I wanna talk to you about

this morning, I'm trying hard.

Oh, we're gonna make it.

We're gonna make it.

Talk to you about the faithful stone.

The stone of inspiration.

The faithful memorial.

The faithful stone.

The psalm said in 1 18 22,

the stone which the builders refused

is become the head.

In Matthew 16, Jesus approaches his disciples

and we have what is known as the great confession.

Jesus comes to his disciples and asks them this question.

Who do men say that I the son of man am?

And then they begin to retort and to reply.

Some say Jonah, some say Isaiah,

some say Elias, some say no telling who.

But everybody's got an answer as to who they think you are.

And then Jesus pointedly looked at Peter and says,

well, who do you say that I am?

And then there was something stirred up inside of old Peter.

It was a response he couldn't control.

He said, thou art the Christ, the son of the living God.

And then Jesus returns again and replies to Peter,

blessed art thou Simon Bar-Jonah,

for flesh and blood hasn't revealed this done to you.

But upon this rock, I will build my church.

What rock?

It wasn't Peter.

His name means Petros, means little stone.

And that's not the reference that Jesus declared

when he said, upon this rock,

upon the Gibraltar of my being the Christ,

I am the chief and the head and the cornerstone

all round up together.

The stone that the builders rejected

has now become the head.

And upon this rock, I will build my church

and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

Let me say something to you this morning.

The faithful stone is the stone

and the rock of Jesus Christ.

Hallelujah.

He is the one that the psalmist said

that lead me to the rock that is higher than I.

Hallelujah.

He's the one he declared upon.

He picked me up out of a pit, out of a miry pit,

and he put me upon a rock and he established my going.

I'm here to tell you, there's a faithful stone

and I'm gonna let that memorial be made known today.

Call you to remember that God is faithful.

Amen.

Amen.

Hallelujah.

Hallelujah.

Hallelujah.

Hallelujah.

Hallelujah.

Hallelujah.

Well, hallelujah.

Hallelujah.

Hallelujah.

The faithful stone.

Hallelujah.

Hallelujah.

The stone which the builders rejected.

Never forget the rocky hillside of Calvary

and it ain't nothing but one big rock.

It's on that rock that the memorial stone was suspended

between the heavens and the earth.

Jesus Christ.

No wonder the old songwriter penned it well.

Rock of ages, cleft for me.

Let me hide myself in thee.

There's something about them old hymns.

Hallelujah.

Why, they stir the memorials in your mind.

Hallelujah.

Hallelujah.

Hallelujah.

Rock of ages, cleft for me.

Amen.

Let me hide myself in thee.

It would be the rock who would be suspended

between the heavens and the earth.

So let me remind you of a memorial called Calvary.

It's a memorial.

It's a place where we are called to remembrance

that Christ died for us.

The stone of the church.

The headstone that was rejected died for you and I.

He died for you and I.

So that we may live in an awe of a wonderful loving God.

But never forget that wonderful loving God

is also a God of judgment.

Why, pastor?

Because he is righteous.

Never forget Calvary.

We cannot forget the cross.

It's the memorial that reminds us of the faithfulness

of God and that while we were yet sinners,

Christ died for us.

It is the ever reminding episode of John 3, 16

for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten

son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish

but have everlasting life.

I could take you to the memorial of my salvation.

Used to be a church there but it's long since been

dozed down and hauled off and a new one built up

on top of the hill.

But I guarantee you I could get you within a 10 foot circle.

I could get you right there, brother David, really close.

To where my stone memorial is.

I can get you right close where I met the faithful stone

and take you really near.

I can remember the time I could take you to the place

where the Lord saved me, right?

Where the Lord saved me, right?

I think there's a part of that I cannot tell you how

and I cannot tell you why.

But I'll tell you all about it in the by and by.

I'm doing my best to tell you about it in the here and now.

We have a memorial day that we're gonna celebrate

tomorrow and we should do so with honor.

Freedom's not cheap, folks, and I don't have to tell you

that, freedom's not cheap.

It comes with the highest price, far above gold,

diamonds, rubies, any other thing of value in this world.

It came at the price of the son of the living God.

Our freedom is there and the freedom of the living God

is there and the freedom of this nation comes

from the highest price that man himself can give

and that's all his life's blood.

So that others don't have to fight that battle.

But it's something we can't take lightly.

Stand with me, I'm closing.

And as you're standing out, those who are gonna hand out

and pass out the communion elements,

would you come and get these?

We're gonna participate in one of the greatest memorials.

Brother James and Brother Ken,

I think they've got some coming upstairs for you.

We're gonna participate in one of the greatest memorials

left to us and that's this cup.

Go ahead and begin to distribute it, fellas.

We'll pray over it in just a minute.

Just go ahead and start handing it out.

It's the cup, the cup of his suffering.

In First Corinthians 11, Paul reminds the people

that you're doing this all wrong.

You're coming in here, you're partying,

you're leaving here drunken

and that's not what that was all about.

Jesus established and Paul again tells them what Jesus said.

This bread is my body which is broken for you.

This cup is my blood which was poured out

for your redemption.

And he said as oft as you do it,

do it in remembrance of me and that's what we're doing.

And he told them there in Corinthians,

he said be prayerful.

Many of your friends and neighbors are already dead

and gone because they mistook and misrepresented

this meal.

He said let every man examine himself.

Let him be worthy.

Well, we automatically begin to say,

well there's no way that I'm worthy.

You're right, we can't be worthy of ourself

but what makes us worthy is the righteousness

of Jesus Christ and the cleansing of his blood.

I never take this cup, I don't care where I'm at,

what I'm doing, I never put the bread across my lip

or a cup to it until I've repented afresh and new.

I examine my soul and I ask God if there's anything

whatsoever between me and the purge me, cleanse me.

I repent before I take that cup

and I encourage you to do the same thing.

We're gonna do that together.

I've had people tell me I'm afraid to take communion.

Don't be afraid to take communion.

You don't have to be afraid of communion.

You just have to make yourself right to partake of it.

We all in our sinfulness would be unworthy

but that's the whole purpose of that rock of Calvary.

The faithful stone, Christ himself.

You just take a moment and pray as I'm gonna pray.

Father, I love you today.

I thank you so much for your goodness

and as we are about to and I'm about to participate

in taking of the cup and the bread,

I do repent humbly before you today.

If I've committed any sins against you or against others,

please forgive me.

I repent.

If I've omitted obedience,

if I've omitted and sinned against you

by things I have not done and should have done

in disobedience, forgive me today.

Forgive me today.

Cleanse my heart and life

as I examine myself according to your word.

Forgive me today, Lord.

Forgive me today, Lord.

Forgive me today, Lord.

Thank you for your forgiveness.

Thank you for your cleansing according to your word.

If any man sins, we have an advocate with the Father,

Christ Jesus, the righteous.

And if we confess our sins, you are faithful and just

to cleanse us of our sins and all unrighteousness.

Now, Father, as I come today,

would you peel that top layer back

and get your wafer in your hand this morning?

Sometimes those things are a little tricky.

It's okay to ask your neighbor to help you if you need it.

Jesus,

Jesus.

Other fount I know,

nothing but the blood of Jesus.

Oh, what can wash away my sin?

Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

What can make me whole again?

Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

Lord, on the night of your betrayal, you took bread.

You break it, break it.

And you said, take and eat.

This is my body, which was broken for you.

Take of the bread today, in Jesus' name.

Thank you, Lord.

Could you just thank him for his body that was given for you?

Hallelujah, thank you, Jesus.

On that very same night, he took the cup.

He took the cup, and he said,

this is the blood of the New Testament.

This is my blood, which is given for the remission of sins,

for the sins of many.

And he said, take and drink.

Take and drink of the cup today.

Well, hallelujah.

Go ahead and praise him for what he's done for you today,

because this is personal, this is you.

He saved you, he forgave your sins.

He's healed your body, he's delivered your mind.

He's done that for you.

He went to Calvary for you.

He went to Calvary for you, thank you, Lord,

for the stone of the witness, for inspiration,

for the teaching, and for faithfulness,

the faithful stone, thank you, Jesus.

Well, hallelujah.