Not This Again

If you've been uh with us for a while, you know that we're in the middle of a series called Getting to Know God.

And the whole point of this series is to dive into scripture to understand the heart of God, the character of God, because it can be really tempting as you open up these Bible stories, it's just like human nature, to read the stories of Abraham, the stories of David, the stories of Jonah, Peter, all of these um interesting men and women in God's plan throughout history.

And the takeaway can kind of seem to be be like this person or don't be like that person, be like this person in that moment.

But when they make a boneheaded decision, don't be like them there.

Um, but this is really just an opportunity.

It's not about getting to know Abraham or getting to know Peter.

It's about getting to know God.

To see in the midst of the ups and downs of these people's lives, the way God responds to them, comes alongside them, encourages them, uh, pulls them out from the pit.

That's what this series is all about.

And we're specifically looking at the story of Abraham so that we can understand God a little bit better.

And if you've been following along very closely, you would know that the next scripture passage that was like up for this Sunday is the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Which thankfully I am not teaching on the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.

And if you're if you've been here for a while, you know we don't skip the hard stuff.

And so when Justin was like, this is the passage that would be up, I was like, can we defer the hard stuff so that you can teach the hard stuff?

And I can teach something else.

And uh thankfully, because I pleaded so well, Justin relented and I narrowly escaped the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.

And so we'll we'll get into that conversation next week.

Um, but this week, the the real reason I was like pushing so hard, I was like, can I please teach this passage?

Is because as I was looking at this passage, it just connected with me personally so much, and God just gave me idea after idea after idea.

So we're looking at the passage that happens right after Sodom and Gomorrah, and this is in Genesis 20, and I'm super excited to share it.

And we're gonna read a big chunk together.

I'm an English major, so I'm I'm I love the read aloud sort of situation.

Um so I'll just ask you, be patient, lock in.

This is a really interesting story that might sound very familiar, so let's get into it.

Genesis 20.

Abraham moved south to the Negev and lived for a while between Kadesh and Shur.

And then he moved on to Gerar.

While living there as a foreigner, Abraham introduced his wife, Sarah, by saying, She's my sister.

So King Abimelech of Gerar sent for Sarah and had her brought to him at his palace.

But that night God came to Abimelech in a dream and told him, You're a dead man, for that woman you have taken is already married.

But Abimelech had not slept with her yet, so he said, Lord, will you destroy an innocent nation?

Didn't Abraham tell me she's my sister?

And she herself said, Yes, he's my brother.

I acted in complete innocence, my hands are clean.

In the dream God responded, Yes, I know you're innocent.

That's why I kept you from sinning against me, and why I did not let you touch her.

Now return the woman to her husband, and he will pray for you, for he is a prophet.

Then you will live.

But if you don't return her to him, you can be sure that you and your people will die.

Abimelech got up early the next morning and quickly called all his servants together.

When he told them what had happened, his men were terrified.

Then Abimelech called for Abraham.

What have you done to us?

he demanded.

What crime have I committed against you that deserves treatment like this, making me and my kingdom guilty of this great sin?

No one should ever do what you have done.

Whatever possessed you to do such a thing?

We've all had that moment with someone.

Abraham replied, I thought this is a godless place.

They will want my wife and kill me to get her.

And she really is my sister, for we both have the same father, but different mothers.

Kind of rationalize it there.

And I married her.

When God called me to leave my father's home and go to travel from place to place, I told her, Do me a favor, wherever we go, tell people that I'm your brother.

Then Abimelech took some of his sheep and his goats, cattle, and male and female servants, and presented them to Abraham.

He also returned his wife Sarah to him.

Then Abimelech said, Look over my land and choose any place where you would like to live.

And he said to Sarah, Look, I'm giving your brother one thousand pieces of silver in the presence of all these witnesses.

This is to compensate you for any wrong I may have done to you.

This will settle any claim against me, and your reputation is cleared.

Then Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech, his wife, and his female servants, so they could have children, for the Lord had caused all the women to be infertile because of what had happened with Abraham's wife, Sarah.

That's a lot.

That's a lot.

But if you have been following along, you probably have this uh this feels extremely familiar, and you're saying the same thing that I'm saying, which is this not this again.

Not this.

Sorry for my handwriting again.

I I know how to spell too.

There we go.

Not this again.

This is a pattern that has already appeared in Abraham's life.

He uh pawned his wife off as his sister in Egypt with Pharaoh earlier, and we'll get to that and explore that a little bit.

Um, but we've all experienced this idea of not this again, this repeated mess up where you have the same mistake in your life, like a sin or just a mistake, the same moment where someone else has to bail you out and you have to explain it to them or to confess what's happened or just to walk through it again.

We've all experienced that feeling.

And the reason I have the whiteboard today is because I'm a very visual person, and so when I read this passage, this is like the image that came up and it applied directly to my life.

There's these moments in life where as time goes on, you feel like you have everything handled and you're on the high, and you're like, yes, this is amazing, this is my favorite thing ever.

I'm I'm so good at everything, and I don't need any help at all.

And then the thing happens, and you go down to the pit and you're frustrated with yourself and you're mad and you say that never again, I will never this will never happen again.

You make promises, you make things, and God saves you, pulls you out, or maybe just circumstances change, you feel like you're back, then you're back down, you do the exact same thing over and over again, and it continues on forever.

This is the image that I had while I was reading this passage, and a couple of things came to mind.

I am not the best handyman at our house.

And by not the best, I mean like I'm I will hire my friend.

I'll be like, Can you come over and do this very simple task for me?

I will pay you a hundred dollars.

And they'll be like, you don't have to pay me for that.

It's just drilling something into the wall.

I'm like, yeah, but it's weird that I'm asking you to do this.

And so as I'm uh going about my daily life, my wife will ask me to do things, and she's very gracious and kind.

She says, Hey, can you mow the weeds?

And I'll say, Yes, I will mow the weeds.

We have weeds, we don't have a lawn, it's just it's just weeds.

I'll mow the weeds, I'll do it, and I will make that promise in this stage, and it will feel so good to confidently say that I'm going to do this.

And I can I can look her right in the eye with love and care and just be like, of course, honey, I will mow the weeds.

Madison, can you uh add knobs to the cabinets?

Yes, I'll get right to it.

They're sitting on the counter, they're right there, of course.

A day goes by, two days go by, a week goes by, and she graciously is like, hey, the weeds.

And I'm like, I know, I'm sorry.

And I feel myself saying, not this again.

And I'll work up enough courage or self-control or whatever it is to do all of the chores all at once, and I'll get back up here and be in good graces and make big promises.

And then a day goes by, a week goes by, I'm back in the pit, not actually following through on the things that I said I'd do.

We all have those moments where you find yourself saying, not this again.

One connected to the church is every summer, the high schoolers uh growing up here, we went to Gatlinburg.

Nowadays we do camp up in uh Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee.

But I went to many road trips in Gatlinburg and they were awesome.

It's like this amazing opportunity.

If you've got teenagers, like for them to just get away from for a week from all of their normal friends, their normal life circumstances to worship and to learn and to spend time in scripture and praying for each other, it is just a phenomenal, phenomenal trip.

And Justin was really great about trying to make each trip special in its own way.

And so I always looked forward to waking up early on one of the days and going on a hike that Justin had planned when he was in charge of the trip.

And he'd always choose a different hike.

And I remember one hike was to a place called Chimney Tops.

Has anyone ever hiked Chimney Tops?

Sorry, Matt, you you got okay, Michael, okay.

It's beautiful, it's an amazing hike.

It's like a decent hike up, but because we woke up so early and uh like it's a smaller group of teenagers, but you know that like care and uh intentionality is not a teenager's strong suit.

So there's a lot that can go wrong on a hike.

Uniquely, this hike, when we get to the top, we weren't actually at the top.

So the top of the hike wasn't the top of the tippy top of the mountain.

We discovered once we got there, and Justin, I'm sure, was very frustrated and stressed as he realized this, that you had to scale the face of a cliff at the very, very top.

And we had like 20, 14 to 17-year-old people that needed to rock climb to reach the promised panoramic view that is supposed to be as beautiful as it could be.

And so we eventually found something, but I remember my friends Quincy and Tessa were like the athletic kids.

They are like sprinting on top of this thing, and if they fall off, it's like a helicopter will have to come get us.

Like there, it would be a very intense situation.

And I have this mental image of Justin with his head in his hands, like stressed out of his mind, going, How can we get off of this as quickly and as safely as possible?

We're not gonna make that mistake again, right?

Right.

Fast forward a couple years, I'm leading the trip to Gatlinburg.

And I'm not thinking, you know, baptisms, we're going to the river.

You gotta be safe.

Can you swim?

Yes, okay, go swim, have fun.

I'm not thinking anyone's gonna be climbing dangerous cliffsides, but I look across the river and I see two teenage girls barefoot scaling like 15, 20, 30, like they're scaling this cliff on the other side of the river.

And I had this flashback.

I was like, not this again.

This is the same moment that Justin experienced many years ago, and I watched it, I should have learned that lesson, but we repeated the same pattern.

And one more, one more.

I'm I know I'm going long on these stories, but uh on the same Gatlinburg trip, like driving 15 passenger vans around the mountains on narrow roads isn't like impossibly unsafe, but it isn't the safest.

You kind of get into some sticky situations, and I learned that being a passenger, watching those drivers drive, you're like, we gotta be quiet now because they need to really, really focus.

When I led the trip, I had the brilliant idea.

You know, instead of going to Gatlinburg, let's go closer, just North Georgia.

I'll rent a bunch of cabins and it'll be great.

I did not check what the road conditions were when I booked the cabins.

And Fred, if you're in the room, Fred, you were on that trip.

There, you drove that 15-passenger van up the steepest, most narrow gravel driveway imaginable.

And I just want to thank you, Fred, for getting all those teenagers back home safe.

Let's hear for Fred.

I made the mistake, but we made it back.

All this to say, we we find ourselves in moments where we're we're saying, not this again.

I thought I had this handled, but now I'm down here.

I uh God rescued me, or I pulled myself up by my bootstraps, I got that self-control, I made it happen, but then I experienced the same thing.

And it might be patterns of sin.

It might be something more serious, it might be that situation where you have to call the same person who knows you deal with that thing, and they have to bail you out again.

It might be the same fear that you thought you were over, but you're still experiencing it in an overwhelming sense.

We find ourselves in this pattern, and Romans addresses this.

Romans 7, 18 through 20 says, And I know that nothing good lives in me.

That is in my sinful nature.

I want to do what is right, but I can't.

I want to do what is good, but I don't.

I don't want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway.

But if I do what I don't want to do, I'm not really the one doing wrong.

It's the sin living in me that does it.

And so with a track record like this, where there are high highs and pretty low lows, this question kept rattling around in my brain as I was reading this passage with Abraham and Abimelech.

And I'm wondering, why does Scripture, why does God, why do we remember Abraham as the faithful father instead of the fearful husband?

Because if you know Abraham's story, it would be just as uh reasonable to call Abraham the fearful husband.

He has done this before.

We read this passage.

He he gets people in trouble, he puts his wife in a dangerous situation.

He's done it before.

Like this is the this is the time we're on, this is the time before.

This is Genesis 12, this is in Egypt.

At that time, a severe famine struck the land of Canaan, forcing Abram to go to Egypt, where he had lived as a foreigner.

As he approached the border of Egypt, Abram said to his wife, Sarai, Look, you're a very beautiful woman.

When the Egyptians see you, they will say, This is his wife, let's kill him, then we can save her.

So please tell them you're my sister, then they will spare my life and treat me well because of their interest in you.

And sure enough, when Abram arrived in Egypt, everyone noticed Sarai's beauty.

When the palace officials saw her, they sang her praises to Pharaoh, their king, and Sarai was taken into his palace.

Then Pharaoh gave Abram many gifts because of her sheep, goats, cattle, male and female donkeys, male and female servants, and camels.

But the Lord sent terrible plagues upon Pharaoh and his household because of Sarai, Abraham's wife.

So Pharaoh summoned Abram and accused him sharply.

What have you done to me?

He demanded.

Why didn't you tell me she was your wife?

Why did you say she's my sister?

And allow her, allow me to take her as my wife.

Now then, here's your wife, take her and get out of here.

Pharaoh ordered some of his men to escort them.

He sent them out of the country, along with his wife and all his possessions.

So he's done this exact same thing before.

Not this again.

And if you know more of the story of Abraham, you'll remember the situation with Hagar.

And if you don't know that story, this is a moment where Sarah being promised a child, Abraham being promised a child, Sarah gets impatient and wants to see the fulfillment of that promise actually come through.

And Sarah convinces Abraham to sleep with their servant Hagar.

And it doesn't go well.

So when it comes to being a husband, when it comes to these moments of uh fear and is God actually going to come through?

It would be very justifiable to call Abraham the fearful husband who trusts in his own plan rather than the plan of God.

And if we were to do that, what we'd be doing is tracking these low points and defining him based on the low points.

And how many of us do that to ourselves?

We look at the low points of our life, we circle this one, we circle that one, we circle the next one, and we're dreading another one, and we say, This is who I am.

I am this mistake, I am this pattern, I am this sin.

But it's not how God sees it.

And I just encourage you with this, and I'll write it on the board so we remember it.

You are not your worst.

You are not your worst.

It was by faith that Abraham obeyed when God called him to leave his home and go to another land that God would give him as his inheritance.

He knew or he went without knowing where he was going.

And even when he reached the land God promised him, he lived there by faith, for he was like a foreigner living in tents.

And so did Isaac and Jacob, who inherited the same promise.

Abraham was confidently looking forward to a city with eternal foundations, a city designed and built by God.

Abraham isn't remembered by his mistakes.

And honestly, he's not really even remembered by his successes.

He's remembered because he continued to choose God despite his mistakes.

And in these moments where God seems to work things out miraculously for Abraham, and he kind of gets out of these situations, it's Abraham that continues to choose God, continues to trust God when things are going well and when things are not going well.

God is not a three strikes you're out God.

It's not like, well, you get one more chance, and if you mess up in the same way again, I'm going to abandon you, I'm going to take the blessings away, I'm not going to let you experience my presence anymore.

If God was a three strikes you're out God, I would not have made it past the age of four.

Like it wouldn't have happened.

It wouldn't.

And those of you who have four-year-olds, you know you're not making it very far.

Look at Peter.

This is a classic example that if we took a person and judged them by their worst mistakes, we'd have a pretty good way to say, not deserving of God's love, not deserving of God's partnership.

Which other disciple pulls out a sword and cuts a guy's ear off?

Which other disciple gets called Satan directly?

It's like, you are Satan, get behind me.

Which other disciple denies Jesus in his hour of need three times?

By all measures, there are some pretty insane mistakes.

And for someone who is so close to Jesus and learns so much for Jesus, you would expect a lot more from Peter.

But is Peter defined by his mistakes?

Or is Peter defined by Jesus?

This is a moment after Christ has resurrected and is walking around appearing to people, he meets Peter by the shoreside and he's cooking breakfast, cooking fish for him.

John 21 says this.

After breakfast, Jesus asked Simon, Peter, Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?

Yes, Lord.

And maybe he's referring to the fish.

Because Peter in this moment went back to being Simon, the fisherman.

So maybe they're eating these fish and having this conversation, gesturing there.

Maybe he's talking about other people.

But he says, Yes, Lord, replied Peter, you know I love you.

Then feed my lambs, Jesus told him.

Jesus repeated the question, Simon, son of John, do you love me?

Yes, Lord, Peter said, You know I love you.

Then take care of my sheep, Jesus said.

A third time he asked Simon, son of John, do you love me?

Peter was hurt that Jesus had asked the question a third time.

He said, Lord, you know everything.

You know that I love you.

Then feed my sheep.

I tell you the truth, when you were young, you were able to do as you liked.

You dressed yourself and went wherever you wanted to go.

But when you're old, you'll stretch out your hands, and others will dress you and take you where you do not want to go.

Jesus said this to let him know by what kind of death he would glorify God.

Then Jesus told him, Follow me.

So Peter went back to being Simon, son of John.

And it's interesting that Jesus calls him Simon.

He kind of meets him on that level and says, Yeah, this is what you're going through.

Oh, you're going to be the fisherman again.

I see.

And what Jesus does in this moment is very lovingly but directly says, I have more for you.

I have more for you than your mistakes.

I have more for you than who you think you can be without me.

So like you can go do this, but I have more for you.

You are Peter the rock.

You are Peter the foundation of the church.

And life is not going to be easy following me.

He kind of signals that moment of Peter being killed on a cross.

He signals that moment saying, like, it's going to be a tough journey, but I have so much more for you than you being a fisherman.

Are you going to respond to that?

Are you going to take care of my sheep?

So Peter is not his worst moments.

And we can praise God for that because Abraham's not his worst moment.

It's not Abraham, fearful father, failure failure as a husband, whatever it is.

It's Abraham, the faithful one.

And guys, you are not your worst.

And this is where it connected for me really personally, because I've got we've all got sins that we deal with all the time.

And sometimes they take different shapes in different seasons.

But it's so easy to feel like I am that struggle.

I am the struggle that I constantly contend against and I constantly succumb to.

But I am not my worst.

You guys, it's you're not your failed business.

You're not your divorce.

You're not your addiction.

You're not your sin.

You have to meet Jesus on his level and allow him to define you because that's why I'm so grateful that we sang that song.

I am found, I am yours, I am whole, I'm made clean.

All of those words that we were singing were so connected to what we were talking about this morning.

The question isn't like, am I this?

It's like, am I his?

Who do I belong to?

Not what have I done?

Because Jesus has has made a way for us to be defined differently.

And when you're in the midst of those not this again moments, my encouragement is to never quit God.

And that's I'll write that here too.

Never quit God.

The temptation when we fail is to say, okay, I'm done.

I'm just gonna embrace the failure.

That's who I am now.

We make mistakes, we inflict wounds or self-inflict wounds, and it's in these crucial moments, it's these important moments that we actually say, but I'm still going to choose God.

I'm still going to confess my sins to Him and to brothers and sisters that I trust.

I'm still going to look to honor God with my life.

You know, this moment with Abraham, he could have doubled down.

He could have been like, my plan has kind of worked.

In Egypt, what did I get?

I got camels, I got goats, I got servants, I got lots of stuff for doing this.

So I'm going to double down again.

And what does he get?

He gets camels, he gets servants, he gets a thousand pieces of silver.

That's what's so strange about this moment.

It's like Abraham doesn't get in trouble for the sin.

He gets away with it.

He gets away with the sin.

He doesn't even really get reprimanded.

I mean, Genesis 23 through 6 says, that night God came to Abimelech in a dream and told him, You're a dead man, for that woman you have taken is already married.

But Abimelech, I can say it, Abimelech hadn't slept with her yet.

So he said, Lord, will you destroy an innocent nation?

Didn't Abraham tell me she's my sister?

Yes, he and she herself said, Yes, he's my brother.

I acted in complete innocence, my hands are clean.

In the dream, God responded, Yes, I know you are innocent.

That's why I kept you from sinning against me, and why I did not let you touch her.

And then later in the story, we get to see the spoils of this moment.

Abimelech said, Look over my land, choose where you want to live, and said, Look, I'm giving your brother a thousand pieces of silver to compensate, and everyone will see it.

And he kind of gets away with it.

So what are we supposed to do with this?

Because it feels kind of weird.

Like, shouldn't Abraham be the one that gets in trouble for this mistake?

And there's a couple things.

One, and this has got to be as direct as possible, like, our sin does inflict damage on the people around us.

Like, we do make those mistakes, and we should steward those opportunities well.

Like to say, like, hey, uh, I've been given, you know, Abraham's been given Sarah as a wife.

Like, I need to steward that relationship well.

If I did what Abraham did with my wife Hannah, y'all wouldn't be sitting here listening to me.

You'd be like, scandal gone.

Like, Madison keeps saying Hannah's his sister and giving her to other guys.

This is just a very strange church.

I don't know if I want to go there anymore.

And it would cause a lot of damage.

And it should cause a lot of damage because it's not right.

But I think what's so special and what's so cool is that we see in these stories that God's the one that works it out.

God's the one that works it out.

Uh, this is Romans 8.28.

And we know that God causes everything together to work for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.

God is gonna work it out.

Even our low points, even when we've sinned time and time again.

I have young kids, I tell them to clean up the house constantly.

Constantly.

And sometimes that's the lesson I'm wanting to teach them is how to clean the house.

And I need to be um just go for it and say, like, hey, you gotta do this until it's done.

You know, um the phrase, like when it's pitch black, it's like totally dark and you can't see anything.

My son always asks me, does it have to be pitch clean?

And I'm like, yes, pitch clean.

He's like, not pitch clean.

But sometimes I'm I'm working on something different with them.

And the mess takes a lower priority.

And honestly, it's pretty easy for me to scoop up Legos with my my hands and just say, all the Legos are clean right now.

You need to go work on that project or go with your be with your brother or whatever it is.

I'm I'm working on something different with them.

So maybe God's working on something different with Abraham, and God sees that this mess is fixable.

He sees, you know what, I can I can take care of this for Abraham.

I've got big things for him to do, and you know, hopefully he learns something, but he doesn't have to go fix this himself.

And how good is God that he steps into our mess and says, you know what, this is the mess that Madison got himself into.

This is the mess that doesn't deserve my help, but I'm gonna step into his mess and fix it for him.

I'm gonna work these things together.

I'm gonna work these things out.

And I I wonder, I wonder what Abraham might have learned.

He might have learned, like, oh, okay, my plan and the way I would go about things when I'm feeling that tension and feeling that fear.

My plan isn't the best plan.

God's got a bigger plan and can organize things beyond what I can possibly imagine.

So that when we get to a moment with Abraham being asked to sacrifice his son Isaac, maybe these moments where God has come through in miraculous and amazing ways, maybe these moments are ringing in his mind and he chooses obedience in those moments and faith.

But God in his goodness is gonna work out the mess and clean up the mess that we made.

And what we have as Christians that's different than Abraham, we have the benefit of knowing and having assurance that Jesus is joined with us in that.

And that we have in our ups and downs, we have a steady presence in our life that can help us overcome anything that's changing because of our own mistakes or anything that's changing because of the world, just going on and going crazy.

Hebrews 13, 8 says, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

And at the risk of being too much of a teacher and drawing more on the board, but like Jesus didn't have this is a cloud, by the way.

Does that look like a cloud?

There's like rays of sun.

I don't know.

This is a terrible drawing.

This represents heaven.

I'm so sorry.

That's terrible.

I should give up on this now.

But this is the mess we come, we we we caused this mess.

This is all on us.

Jesus steps out of heaven into the straight into the pit, into the mess of our daily life, and walks alongside us.

And scripture says that if we belong to Jesus, his spirit joins with our spirit, and we have uh basically our become new creations, and we can walk in a steadiness and experience love and grace and forgiveness and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness.

We can experience all of that even in the midst of our mess because of what Jesus Christ has done for us.

And so if you know Jesus, you have someone steady at the wheel.

You have someone steady that you can rely on, that you can trust on, that you can continue to choose and understand that your sin has been dealt with.

Philippians 2, Paul encourages the church by saying, Is there any encouragement by belonging from belonging to Christ?

Any comfort from his love?

Any fellowship together in the Spirit?

Are your hearts tender and compassionate?

Then make me truly happy by agreeing wholeheartedly with each other, loving one another, and working together with one mind and purpose.

Don't be selfish, don't try to impress others, be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves.

Don't look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others too.

That's very much an Abraham moment.

Like he's looking out for himself.

He wanted to not get attacked or anything like that.

And Paul goes on in his encouragement.

He says, You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.

Though he was God, he didn't think of equality with God as something to cling to.

He's in heaven, but he didn't think of that as something that he needs to hold on to.

Instead, he gave up his divine privileges, he took the humble position of a slave, and was born as a human being.

When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal's death on a cross.

Therefore, God elevated him to the highest honor and gave him the name above all other names, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue declare that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

How beautiful is that.

We have a new person, a perfect person that gets to define us.

So never quit him.

Because if you accept him, you get to know that that that mess doesn't define you anymore.

It doesn't.

And you have someone walking alongside you to get you out of this mess.

And it still might be kind of messy.

Abraham was a good dude, but he still made mistakes.

But we know that we can't earn the salvation we've been given.

We can't lose it either.

So choose him and know that you're not defined by your worst.

And with that, we're we're gonna take Lord's Supper.

And what I love so much about this little meal is that it's a weekly reminder of the stuff that we've just been talking about.

Uh I am a physical representation kind of person.

Like I love art in my house to look at and remind me of certain things.

I love uh I have like two little sheep on my desk that remind me of my kids, and like I'm supposed to shepherd them well.

I've got a special coin in my pocket that's like reminds me of something.

Herb, I have that chain link thing that you gave me, it's on my desk.

Yeah, I look at it all the time, reminds me of my friendship with Herb.

And so I'm just uh I love the physical representation of things.

And if I'm honest with myself, like this is my favorite part of coming together on Sundays.

Um there is just something special about being in a room full of people that are understanding that this little meal, and if you didn't grab a cup when you came in, there's cups at the four columns of the back, and you you will not mess up anything if you stand up and go get one while I'm talking.

Um, but this little meal just reminds me that you know Jesus' body was broken on my behalf.

Like someone had to pay for this mess.

This mess was still wrong.

Someone had to deal with Abraham's sin.

Someone had to deal with my sin.

Someone had to pay for that.

And Jesus did.

With the teenagers, when I talk with them, it's like, you know, someone's got to get grounded.

And like Jesus got grounded for me.

You know, Jesus stepped in when I have inflicted so much damage to the people around me.

Jesus stepped in and worked all things together for the good of those who loved him.

And he did it before I even loved him.

He dealt with my sin.

And so when he went to the cross, his body was broken for me so that I might be made right.

And that's what we remember as we eat the bread.

And as we drink the juice, we remember that we are washed clean.

That his blood, and remember the blood that was spilled for us, it's this blood of this new covenant, not an old covenant where there were uh rules and do this and don't do that, that we had to attain perfection or kill an animal when we couldn't reach perfection.

Jesus is the final and perfect sacrifice so that we might be made clean.

And so as we take this together, I would just encourage you to thank him, to remember him, to understand that he has done so, so much for you.

So let's hold up the bread.

Lord, we thank you for willingly going to the cross.

We thank you for your body that was broken on our behalf.

And thank you for creating a way for us to be made clean and for wrapping up all of our mess and figuring all of that out for us when we didn't have the tools to figure it out.

Lord, we thank you for the cross and we thank you for your body that was broken.

Let's eat the bread.

Now open the juice.

Lord, we thank you for the cup.

And for the blood that this juice represents that was spilled out for us so that we wouldn't have to work to attain some vision of perfection, but we would be made clean even in the midst of our mistakes.

I pray that as we we drink this, that we would experience your forgiveness, not just know about it, but that we would understand that it is a close and personal thing, that your love and your forgiveness is total and complete.

Let's drink the juice.