Does My Soul Have A True Refuge In The Storms Of Life

You're a student, you're dismissed.

And if you uh y'all want to sit in the goat section, you can, but I didn't come up and be with the sheep.

Um we got some seats up here.

You're welcome.

You're welcome to sit anywhere you want, too.

Greetings, welcome to Christ Community Church.

I greet you in the name of my Savior, and I'm happy to be here with you.

I'm happy to be with you.

Good morning.

Um musical's great.

Yeah.

Thank you.

That was Christopher.

Justin, Sean, Bethany, Zachary.

I don't know if I Derek, uh, thank you, thank you, thank you.

It was it was rich and good, and more importantly, it was true.

What we sang was true.

And um that makes it even more special.

Psalm 81, I think it's verse 10, says, Lord God Almighty, the one that delivered us from Egypt.

No, no, Lord, have us.

The Lord God Almighty's, uh, the Lord God Almighty, the one that delivers you from Egypt, that delivered you from Egypt, declares, open wide your mouth and I will fill it.

That's what it says.

The Lord God Almighty, who delivered you from Egypt, declares, open wide your mouth and I will fill it.

That seems to put the responsibility on us to open up our mouths.

And so I want to pray that we'll do that today.

Lord God, I ask you, as best I know how, to please give us the ability, enable us to own our hunger and thirst, our uncleanness, our foolishness, our independence and rebellion, our fear, our enslavement, our brokenness.

And give us the grace, God, to open up our lives so that you can do in us and for us what you want to do if we'll just receive it.

Please make us willing.

I ask in Christ's name.

Amen.

Um this won't shock any of you that know me, but throughout my life, I've gotten myself at times into some real bad places.

Uh dangerous places, places where I um it was right on the bubble as to what was going to happen.

And I've told y'all about a couple of those times when I was jogging in Kiev, Ukraine, and it started snowing I mean, really snowing, and I was not a it took me about two hours to find my way home, or back to the little place where I was staying.

Another time when I was hiking in Colorado with Rob Joyner, and uh it was not supposed to snow, and we were not dressed, we were dressed for 50-degree weather, and it it snowed about a half a foot and dropped down to about 10, and we were not prepared for that, and it it was uh it was a deal.

Uh time when we were uh at Pickwick, Nanny will remember we were on a boat in the middle of Pickwick Lake, and a s this weird storm came up, and I had a pontoon boat full of little kids, little kids.

And uh her daddy was on a jet ski.

You know, he should have been driving the boat, but he wasn't.

He was on the jet ski uh with, I guess with Rainy.

Or somebody, one kid, and we were on the boat, and it was it was uh intense.

Uh again, um yeah, just super dangerous.

It just was it was a bad situation, a bad storm, bunch of little kids.

We were all trying to hide the little kids under this little boat table.

Um and you know, yeah, so it was just uh it was a deal.

Um I told you the story about me being in China and breaking my leg on the side of a mountain, uh, and there was no one 25 miles from us uh uh uh that you know that could have helped us.

And uh there there were some I've been in some very difficult situations.

Um any you think of maybe in your own life?

Well, um just one real quick.

Um we were there used to work for a company for a uh mission sending company.

This was before the internet, and so you couldn't check on missionaries and and like what their needs were and stuff.

You had to go there.

That was like in the 90s, and you had to go over there.

And we went we went over to to visit this um pastor in Romania who had been imprisoned for his faith, and then with the fall of Ceausescu, he got out and he was rebuilding what was lost.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

We're supposed to go from Hungary into um Romania.

So very long story.

The gist of it is the train that we were supposed to take, we couldn't get, and so we ended up taking a later train.

The train was f filled with wanderers and and that sort of thing, it just everybody crammed in.

Wanderers.

Okay.

Crammed in.

Um we get there at two or three in the morning.

Which this story.

Two or three in the morning.

Um, and because the the chescues had had driven the land into such poverty, every about everything was stolen.

There wasn't anything left, and so there were no light bulbs anymore.

All the light bulbs out in public were all.

So we were having this train station in the middle of the night on the furthest track from the station, of course, and we have to haul all our stuff down through the the this kind of tunnel.

We get to where we're supposed to go, the train station, and there's no iPhone or anything, so we have to go in and try to make a phone call with no not the right coins.

And we got encircled by a group of angry men, and there we were depending.

And we had all this luggage, and it was very clear.

We we had luggage and passports and money, and they did not have any of that.

And we were we were literally surrounded, and they were coming in and pushing a little, and it was terrible.

It was intense.

Your brother kept saying, Don't look at anybody.

My brother and I were there with Sherry and her his wife, which if it had been just us, you know, you you sacrifice the the B team people, but we had our wives with us, and it was intense.

Yeah.

We needed help.

We needed a refuge.

Which is what this sermon is about.

Yes.

Times in my life, in our life, and I'm sure in your life, that you can think back on when things happened that you didn't expect, you didn't think of, you didn't plan on, and all of a sudden you are faced with, you know, the realization this could go badly.

This could really, really go south on us.

Um, and and we we need some help.

Uh we need to be rescued.

We need rest or renewal or restoration.

Um life is scary and it's uncertain, and it's fragile, and it can change or end in a split second.

If you doubt that, ask the families that attend harvest church.

They get up one morning, go to the same grocery store, same laundry, same schools, same jobs, kiss their loved ones goodbye.

That morning they get a phone call.

Um things didn't turn out the way anybody expected.

Um and so the the question that I want us to think about today and that I've been thinking about all week is do I have a refuge, a real refuge that I can run to for help, for rescue, for deliverance, for hope.

When everything falls apart, when everything goes south.

I've been thinking about that in my own life, and I've been thinking that for you.

For Karoon and Don and Alan Do we have a refuge that we can run to when everything falls apart?

We think I I think that people think that um when things fall apart for others, that there's a lot of compassion.

Most I guess most people probably have a a goodly bit of compassion.

But when they fall apart for us, then it's a different, of course, but it's a different situation.

It's lonely or terrifying.

It's scary and terrifying.

And we need a place.

And I just wanted to remind us today that the Bible repeatedly declares God's passion.

For us to know that we know, that we know, that God wants to be that refuge in our lives.

The whole point, if those of you that are reading through the Bible with me, we're about to read through the section of Scripture for a month or so, where God is preparing the people of Israel to enter the promised land.

I can't prove this right this second, but I think that he repeated this more than anything else in all of his preparation instructions for his people to enter the promised land.

He repeats it five times.

When you go into the promised land, I want you to set aside some designated places called cities of refuge where my people can run for help, for protection, for rest when they are under attack, when they're in need, when life goes south on them.

I want you to set aside some places where they can run to, some cities of refuge.

That's what God calls them.

There's a lot of reasons for that, but it's important that we not miss that that's not just something God wanted his people to do physically.

He wanted those cities to teach his people.

That's what he wants to be.

He wants to be those cities.

He wants to be that place when my life falls apart that I can go and find refuge, help, protection, strength.

Psalm 18 says, The Lord is my rock and my fortress, my Savior, my God is my rock, my place of protection, my shield, the power that saves me, who is worthy of praise, and he saved me from my enemies.

Psalm 31 says, How great is the goodness that you, O Lord, have stored up for those who fear you.

You lavish your goodness on those that take refuge in you.

And in Psalm 46, and there's probably, I'm not exaggerating, there's probably 200 verses that I could have read to you today.

Psalm 46, God is our refuge and our strength.

He is our continu, He is continually ready to help us in times of trouble.

So, and I love this, because that's true, because we know that God is our refuge, the author says, so we don't fear when earthquakes come and mountains crumble and the oceans roar and foam.

Now notice what it doesn't say.

God is our refuge and our strength.

He's continually ready to help us in times of trouble, so the earthquakes don't come.

The mountains don't crumble, and the oceans don't roar.

That's not what it says.

God longs to be our place of safety and help, our rest and our hope.

God longs to be that King David when we're Mephiboshev.

God longs to be that friend like Jonathan when we're David.

God longs to be, where would I write those all as?

Oh, my brother, like Joseph was to his brothers.

God longs to be my husband, like Boaz was in the life of Ruth.

God longs to be my dad, like the father was in Luke 15, when the prodigal needed some grace from his dad.

God longs to be that place of safety.

And as I've taught you, as we've taught you so many times, the God of the Bible is shockingly and frustratingly, sorry, short on wise.

The God of the Bible is short on wise, but he is long on what nows.

What now?

He tells us infrequently, he does sometimes, but it's in my life, it is shockingly, and it's so deadcum frustrating how infrequently God shares with me the whys of what's going on.

But he is so faithful to declare to me and to you if we'll listen, what now?

And the what now is I want to be your refuge.

I want to be your refuge.

I want to just challenge you, or I want us to challenge you today to just consider four things.

I I don't know that I have prayed as much for God to speak to you today as I have prayed this week.

Ever in my life.

I don't know that I've prayed as hard for God to speak to you.

And I I have asked many of you to please pray with me that God will speak to us and open our eyes, open our ears, open our mouths so that we can see and understand and receive that which God wants to say to us today.

So I want us to think about very quickly, four, I want to give you four things to consider related to this idea of God being my refuge.

God being your refuge.

Not our refuge, but your refuge.

A refuge is only important if I realize I need it.

Do you understand that?

If I said, hey everybody, there's a fire extinguisher right there, I don't think a soul in this room would jump up.

You know why?

There's no fire.

A refuge, when I was in Colorado and the snow was over my knees and it was coming, you could not see much further than your hand.

When we were in that uh train station, uh, I could when I was laying on the side of that mountain with a broken leg in China, all of a sudden things that I did not value, all of a sudden I valued.

Because I became confronted with the realization I am in need.

A refuge is only valuable for people who realize they need it.

That's why Proverbs 18 says, God is a refuge for all who will run inside.

I've mentioned to you on many occasions.

The people in Noah's day, what did Jesus say about the people in Noah's day?

They are bad, evil, wicked, doing all kind of terror.

No.

You know what he says they were doing?

The very things that you and I do every day.

We get up, we go to work, we feed our families, we pay our bills, we cut our grass, we vacuum the floor, we go out to dinner with our friends, we marry our daughters, and we give, we we we create weddings, we get we create funerals, we go through life.

The people in Noah's Day were not necessarily bad people, but they told God, no, thank you.

The older brother.

In Luke 15, what was he doing?

Oh, he was out there smoking dope and cussing and beating up the servants.

No.

All he was doing was out in his father's field working his fanny off for his dad.

He was not a bad guy.

In fact, he's the guy.

You wouldn't have hired the dude that the father was doting over.

You'd have hired the older brother.

The older brother was a good guy.

The Pharisees and the Sadducees, these are good people.

They are devout, religious, um, uh faithful, obedient, rule following people.

Judas, the rich young ruler, I could go on and on and on.

These people were not bad people.

They would have been, they would have blended into Christ's community church perfectly.

What linked those people together is that these people, these people told God, no thanks.

It's why, um, you know, I I don't whether you think about it much, but it it always throws me for a little bit of a loop that God, that Jesus, not every time, but he consistently, when he would encounter a lame man or a blind man, Or a leper or a demon-possessed man.

He not every time, but he often would confront these people.

What do you want?

What do you what do you think they want you to do, Jesus?

But Jesus wanted them to say it.

He wanted them to own it.

I am blind and I want to see.

I can't hear and I want to hear.

I can't speak and I want to speak.

I can't walk and I want to walk.

He would consistently ask people, what is it that you want me to do?

The prophet Isaiah said, listen to this in chapter 30.

Yahweh declares, only in turning to me and resting in me will you be saved.

And a little further down he says, but you said no thanks.

We will get our help from other people and other places.

And then God ends that sentence with this declaration.

And that will be your undoing.

Paul says in Hebrews 6, there is a great hope and a great confidence for those who have fled to Jesus for refuge.

Do I recognize?

Do you recognize that we need a Savior?

We need a place of refuge.

Do we value that?

Do we recognize our need for that?

And so that leads me to my second consideration.

And that is simply this.

Is Jesus the Son of God the one that we celebrated his birthday last month?

The one who lived 33 years in obedience to his father's commands and died on a cross for your sins and mine and rose from the grave.

Is that person your refuge?

I'm not asking you if you know a lot about him.

I grew up in church in Whitehaven.

My mom had me in church every week.

I was in the Sunday school and in the choir and in the went to church camp and, you know, I did everything there was in church, and I knew all the Bible stories.

And I knew a lot about Jesus.

Just like I know a lot about Ronald Reagan.

Greatest president that ever lived.

At least as good as Lincoln and Washington.

But nonetheless, that's another story.

I knew a lot about Ronald Reagan.

I knew his wife's name.

I knew where he was from.

I knew he was a governor.

I knew he was a movie star.

I knew what kind of a what kind of political values he had.

I knew a lot about Ronald Reagan.

But if Ronald Reagan had walked in this room, he would not have said, hey, Larry.

For one simple reason.

I didn't know him.

I didn't know who he was.

2 Corinthians 13 says this.

Examine yourselves to see if your faith is genuine.

Test yourselves to make sure.

That was Paul.

Peter said it this way.

Do the things that prove you really are one of God's called and chosen people.

Not all of you, but most of you.

I think still this is true.

Most of you knew my dad.

And uh my dad was great, and he loved me very much, and I loved him very much.

I still do.

Um he was a pistol.

By anybody's definition.

And uh my mom drugged, my my grandparents drug him to church his whole growing up.

Then he went off to college and to uh uh military life and came home and married my mom and danged if she didn't drag him to church from then on too.

But my dad was not.

By my dad's own testimony, Jesus was not his refuge.

By my dad's own testimony, if he was here today, he would say, I don't know how old my dad was, mom, when he became a Christian.

I was gone.

I was, I was, uh, I'd moved away.

I we were probably married, but I know I was gone to college.

But I I don't remember when, but I remember well when I came home for a visit.

I don't know whether we were living in Lynchburg or in Knoxville or where Texas, but I came home and my dad was different.

And I couldn't, he you know, he didn't really say much about it at first, but he talked differently.

He treated my mom differently.

He uh reacted to things differently, he valued things differently.

One of the things that, you know, my dad never read a book in his whole life.

That is not an exaggeration.

My dad, he graduated from M State, never read a book in his life.

He hated to read.

But when I came home and started noticing the difference in my dad, you know what my dad started doing?

He started reading the Bible all the time.

He loved the word of God.

My dad had gone to a church that I grew up going, you know, that my mom drug is to.

And I'm glad she did.

I don't mean that mean she should have, and she did.

But the reason my dad went to that church is not because he cared about church.

The reason he went to that church at all was because that church was 90% filled with all the people that were from the White Haven Country Club.

The people that he was with, he'd been playing golf with them all week long, and so on Sunday he just got up and went to the White President, because that's where they were all, that's that's that's where they gathered rather than at the golf course.

They just gathered on Shelby Drive in White Haven.

But after when I started when I came home as an adult, and my dad, something had happened in his life.

He started loving church.

It was no longer dutiful, it was no longer just to see people.

He loved gathering with the people of God.

And what's crazy is he would have never gone to a church that wasn't full of people like him.

The same people he played golf with and went to dinner with, played Jin Rummy with.

Well, anyway.

Um but after this, all of a sudden, the people that my dad adored the most, he still loved those people.

But he started loving you.

And I'm just gonna be honest with you, many of you, my dad would have never given the time of day to.

But then all of a sudden, the Jesus that lives in you, he found so attractive.

And he wanted to be around you.

He wanted that love, that Jesus in you.

He wanted that to spill over into his life.

And he wanted the love of Jesus that was in his life to spill over into your life.

He started loving people and talking about people and going out to lunch and dinner with people, hanging out with people that he would have never enjoyed.

And he started truly our little church was one of the true joys of his life.

And what changed was there came a moment where my dad realized he needed a refuge.

He needed a refuge.

And Jesus was not his refuge.

And he gave all that he knew of himself, still had more problems than Jesus.

He still had more questions than answers, still had more problems than solutions, more dysfunction than function, doubt you not.

But when he gave all he knew of himself to all he knew of Jesus, and Jesus became his refuge, everything different changed.

Everything was different.

Last two things that I'll say is this.

I want you to hear me.

I want you to consider that what I'm about to tell you is true.

And I def I want you to go home and prove me wrong if I am.

I'm not, but you can try.

Let me know if you do.

Do you know that eternal life, the salvation, the new birth, the eternal life that God offers us is not a ticket to heaven?

Let me say it one more time.

The eternal life, the salvation, the new birth, whatever the word is that you that you're lingo, do you understand that that is not a ticket to heaven?

God, let me just say it this way, the Bible never offers people tickets to heaven.

Do you understand that?

Let's go back to the Old Testament, give you the best picture.

The metaphor in the Bible that is used the most to reveal to us what salvation looks like is found in Exodus.

God comes to his people who are enslaved to evil, to darkness, and he offers them freedom.

But did you notice as you've been reading with me through Exodus?

We're right there.

I mean, we're right there if you're reading through the Bible with me.

God didn't just sprinkle out, get out of slavery tickets.

Free freedom from slavery tickets.

That's not what he offered the Israelites.

What he offered them was an invitation to know him personally and to go on a journey with him.

Isn't that right?

Do you not see that?

Those of you that read the Bible at all, it's not what I'm telling you to be true.

It's what the Bible declares.

God didn't come down to the Israelites and say, peach, destroy the Egyptian army.

You're free.

And then just go on your way.

Go, go, go marry who you want, live where you want, do what you want, raise your family the way you want.

That is not what God offered the Israelites.

What God offered the Israelites is: I want to be your God.

And I will be with you, and I will travel with you through every experience of life, good and bad.

And I'm committed to your good, and I'm committed to your success, and I will never leave you, and I promise to take care of you.

Journey with me.

You're God.

And I'm inviting you on a journey with me.

From where you are to where I want you to be.

God didn't just offer people get out of slavery cards.

He offered them a relationship and he offered them a journey, a life journey.

The metaphor that the Bible uses as often as any to reveal what God's eternal life looks like is a marriage.

What year is this?

Two.

42.

42 years ago, we stood in a Baptist church in Whitehaven on Shelby Drive, and we faced each other, and a pastor was standing in front of us, and I didn't just give you a piece of paper, and you give me a piece of paper.

Bye.

Wish you well.

Go and prosper.

No.

I committed my life to her, and she committed her life to me.

We created a relationship, and what God offers, if God is going to be our refuge, we need to see that.

We need to embrace that.

It's not just knowledge.

We have made salvation, the new birth, eternal life, a knowledge, a transfer of knowledge.

I used to not know this truth, and now I do.

I used to not know that Jesus died on the cross for me, and now I know he does.

So somehow that makes everything okay.

But that's not true.

That's not what the Bible reveals.

It's not just knowledge, but rather a commitment, the giving of my life to God, and an understanding that God has given his life to me.

That's why in John chapter 1, the Bible says, but as many as receive him, not it, not the knowledge, but as many as received the knowledge that Jesus died on the cross for you, to them he gave the right to become children of God.

John 1 · chapter mention

That's not what it says.

What it says is, but as many as received him, that intimacy, that he you received the very life of the Son of God into you, and he receives your life into him.

Do we see that?

That's why that passage, I think it's in John 6, might not be, but you get that, where Jesus says something rather startling, but it's only startling if we don't understand this.

He says, if you don't eat of my body and drink of my blood, you are not of me.

You will not experience my life.

Are we supposed to be cannibals?

Are we supposed to be eating somebody's body and drinking?

No.

What he's saying is that intimacy, that his life, his body, his blood, there's nothing any more intimate is going to be taken into you.

And that's where eternal life occurs.

God offers us a relationship, and he offers us a journey.

A journey through life.

The last thing that I want to say, and we'll end it.

My dad, well, you know, now that I think of it, he didn't leave me Jack when he died.

You know, I just realized that.

He didn't leave me, not a blessed thing.

He didn't.

Just never thought of it until this very moment.

I didn't get Jack.

Actually, he left me a million things.

You couldn't put a price tag on them, but that's the truth.

But you know the thing that my dad left me that's the most valuable thing in the world to me right now.

It's the same thing that Sherry's daddy left me.

They both intentionally took the time to explain to me that they knew Jesus as their refuge.

That Jesus was real to them.

That they didn't just know about Jesus, but they had a relationship with him, an intimate relationship with him.

And so when my father-in-law and my dad died, the greatest gift that they both gave me, and I believe my loved ones would all say, yes, we agree.

Nobody was at my dad's funeral, nobody was at Sherry's daddy's funeral hoping that he was in heaven, wishing that he was in heaven, wondering where he is.

They took the time to tell those that mattered most.

The Son of God, I know him.

He lives in my life.

He has given me eternal life, and I have a relationship with him.

I'm on a journey with him, and I will be with him one day.

We're reading through Exodus together right now.

And you know, one of the things that Moses tells the people over and over and over again in Exodus, Leviticus, numbers, and Deuteronomy.

Take the time to tell your sons and daughters what happened to you when I delivered you from slavery.

You make sacrifices.

They're going to ask you, why do you go to the tabernacle?

Why do you make sacrifices?

Why do you pray?

Why do you not eat certain foods?

Why do you live your life the way you do?

When they ask, be sure you tell them.

Don't assume they know.

Tell them.

There was a moment when I was a slave to sin, to selfishness, to darkness, to dysfunction.

And the God of the universe came down and miraculously took away my sin and gave me eternal life.

And I've got a relationship with him.

And I'm on a journey with him.

But Dad, you're messed up as anybody.

Yes, I am.

Maybe more so.

But I've got a relationship with the God of the universe.

Don't let your family wonder, wish, hope.

Let them know, dads, and I'm not trying, I know you're not supposed to say stuff anymore about dads, but anyway, I can't help it.

There is something.

My mom's supposed to be a Christian.

But when my dad told me that he had given his life to Jesus, I'm telling you that was a deal.

That was a deal.

And if you don't have that story to tell, why don't you create it?

Why don't you accept the offer that Jesus is making to you?

I'll be your refuge.

Win, lose, or draw on your best day and your worst day, no matter what you face, big problems, little problems, I'll be your refuge.

And when you face your biggest problems, I'll be your biggest refuge.

Accept that gift.

Accept that gift.

Receive that eternal life.

I want you.

Not just, I want the knowledge.

I want you, God.

I want your son.

I want him in my life.

And I receive that gift.

And I want to go on a journey with you.

If you don't have that story, get that story.

If you don't know how to tell that story well, tell it poorly.

Tell it poorly.

Don't leave your family wondering.

Don't rob your family of that confidence that you are with Jesus when you die.

You'll never give your family a greater gift.

Anything you want to add, friend?

No, except for, I was just thinking, um, how the language is is funny about eternal life.

It's in such a way that where we think, or I think, thought, eternal life begins when someone dies.

Yeah.

Wow.

And it's just not, that's not true.

In fact, that should be the smallest transformation.

It's yeah, that's that's so good.

Dang.

Wish I'd have said that.

That was really good.

Dang it.

Yeah, that's And that's the reason if if you are, if I am already dwelling in eternal life, then when I'm called on from the scripture to do something difficult, like forgive my enemy or love my enemy, while it is paradoxical and and difficult, I am alive in my eternity, in eternal life.

And so I at least want to do it.

And then, of course, wanting to do something is the first step in doing something.

It leads to us being able to do it.

And and we can do those things that are we're called to do that are difficult.

You read a verse earlier about doing.

Um if we are eternally alive.

And if we are not, well, that makes sense to me that it that a person would look at something like love your enemy and go, well, that's the dumbest thing I ever heard.

That actually makes sense to me.

But if I'm eternally alive, then I should.

Well, it makes everything different, doesn't it?

Giving money away to the needy.

Well, I might need that.

They ought to work for it.

I might need.

But when if I really do believe I have eternal life, then that it's already begun.

And it's already begun, it changes everything.

It changes everything.

I sat through hundreds of church services growing up.

My dad sat through thousands of church services.

He would tell you, and I would tell you, Jesus was not our refuge.

We had information, but we did not give our lives to him and intentionally receive his life from us.

And when that happened, it changed everything.

Thank you.

Um please don't leave here today.

I don't talk about this.

You need to get saved.

You need to have eternal life.

You need to, I don't, some of you have never heard me teach this.

And that's because I come from a tradition.

Well, I don't.

I would just say to you, because I don't talk about this every Sunday, please take it as something that's really special and unique and important.

And if you've never accepted Jesus as your Savior, it's not the word you say.

What if I don't say the right prayer?

There isn't any prayer.

The only salvation prayer that I know of in the entire Bible is three words.

Peter utters it as he's going down for the count.

Jesus or Lord save me.

That's the only salvation prayer that I think I can remember in the Bible.

Lord save me.

But he wanted an intimate relationship with Jesus at that moment, and he showed that the rest of his life he was on a journey with Jesus.

And so I would just appeal to you.

If you're not sure that Jesus is your Savior, just accept his life and receive his life and give your life to him.

Text me or email me or call me next week.

Let's talk.

Talk about what that means.

We're going to celebrate the Lord's Supper.

And uh one of y'all stand there and one of y'all come over here.

Um we eat bread and drink juice, wine, as a way of reminding ourselves every week and declaring to one another, Jesus is my refuge.

He really is my refuge.

His real body and his real blood were really given for me.

I believe that and I'm embracing that.

I'm trusting in that.

That's why we eat and we drink.

To remind ourselves and declare to one another that Jesus came and lived and died and rose again so that we could be forgiven of our sins and included in the family of God.

Beginning now, not one day.

And so if that is your belief, your intent, your desire, then I invite you to come and to take bread and wine and eat and drink and give thanks.

And um, if you're not certain that the Lord Jesus is your Savior, just stay in your seat for a moment.

If it maybe you ought to stay in your seat for just a moment and think through do my kids know?

Does my wife know?

Does my boss know?

Do people that matter to me, do they know that Jesus Christ is my savior?

Not the savior, but my savior.

Father God.

Bless these precious people today.

Move in their lives.

Reveal to them.

Open their eyes, soften their hearts, unstop their ears, remove all the clutter from their minds.

Let them hear your spirit.

Either say, You are my child, or let them hear you say, I want you to be my child.

God speak to them and work in their lives, I pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.

You come, come down the two center aisles, and then exit by the outside aisles if you would, please.