Kingdom Math

Well, it's good to be here.

Um, I can't see any of you because of the lights, but I assume most of you are out there.

Okay.

Um and I really appreciate James and the session uh inviting me to come and uh preach the word.

It's really a privilege.

I just love going to new churches and seeing people, getting to know some of the people of God.

I'm gonna try really hard not to pitch over into the communion elements here.

So um you might want to have uh 911 on speed dial, just in case.

Before we read the Lord's Word, let's pray.

Father, we give you thanks and praise that we have the opportunity to read and study your word this morning.

We we praise you that because of your spirit, we can delight in it, learn from it, be warned by it, and find Jesus in it.

Remind us of that old, old story of Jesus and his love.

Show us from this text in John what a true relationship with Jesus looks like.

And so, Father, we commit this time to you.

We ask that your Spirit would be with us and give us grace to trust you more.

We ask it in Jesus' name.

Amen.

John chapter 3, starting in verse 22, it says, After this, Jesus and his disciples went into the Judean countryside, and he remained there with them and was baptizing.

John 3 · chapter mention

Now John also was baptized and at Anon near Salim, because water was plentiful there, and people were coming and being baptized, for John had not yet been put in prison.

Now a discussion arose between some of John's disciples and a Jew over purification.

They came to John and said to him, Rabbi, he who is with you across the Jordan to whom you bore witness, look, he is baptizing, and all are going to him.

John answered, A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven.

You yourselves bear bear me witness that I said, I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him.

The one who has the bride is the bridegroom.

The friend of the bridegroom who stands and hears him rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice.

Therefore, this joy of mine is now complete.

He must increase, and I must decrease.

He who comes from above is above all.

He who is of the earth belongs to the earth and speaks in an earthly way.

He who comes from heaven is above all, and he bears witness to what he has seen and heard, yet no one receives his testimony.

Whoever receives his testimony sets his seal to this, that God is true.

For he whom God has sent utters the words of God, for he gives it the for he gives the Spirit without measure.

The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand.

Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life.

Whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

This is God's word, and you may be seated.

We went to their home.

For any of you who have ever been in the Low Countries during the winter, you know that the weather is cold and damp.

This was about 11 years, shows how old I am.

This is about 11 years after the end of World War II.

And heating systems were not what they are in this country, certainly.

And so I wound up uh getting bronchitis three times.

Now, in those days, you didn't have a lot of antibiotics, and since it was very soon after World War II, they didn't even have the factories to make them.

And so what the doctor did, his pri um his um prescription was vitamins and travel.

Now, I've been looking for that guy here in this country because that's that's like the best thing ever.

So what we did, because I got sick three times, and very sick three times, we went to several different countries.

One of which, strangely enough, because the weather was the same, was the UK.

And uh I remember very clearly we've been there a couple of other times, but this time was the very first time I had ever seen the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace.

And I remember as a little guy just watching the incredible precision and uh pomp and ceremony and the movement from the uh the old guard to the new guard.

And that's really what is happening here.

This goes from, this text goes from Old Testament shadows to New Testament reality, from the offerings that were offered in the temple to the offering himself, the Lord Jesus Christ, from the one who was uh proclaiming to the one who was proclaimed, and from the best man to the bridegroom.

And every single gospel talks about this and applies Isaiah 40 to John.

It says, a voice of one calling in the desert, prepare the way for the Lord, make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God.

And this transition from Old Testament to New Testament is a culmination, it's a fulfillment, or we might say a culmination of all that had gone before.

All the prophets, all the promises, all of God's plans and purposes are fulfilled in this God man, Jesus Christ.

The passage that we read, we see John the Baptist telling his disciples a really, really great truth.

One that we need, I need, and I think we all need to remember constantly that the Messiah must increase and we must decrease.

When the light of life comes, all else is dimmed.

And you might know the old hymn cast your eyes or turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in his wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.

You know, we Americans are consumers, and I put myself in that category.

And so often when we look for a church, we tend to look for getting our wants filled and our desires filled rather than our needs.

Rather than a place of sacrificial service, sometimes we look for entertainment or whatever.

I found myself in that same position.

I finished up an interim at a place called High Plains Fellowship in Falcon, Colorado, about a year and a half ago.

And so what Kathy and I wanted to do was give the new pastor who came in about a year or so to uh to kind of get settled before we came back to a congregation that we had grown to love.

And one of the things that we discovered very quickly was we were looking for um for our needs and our tastes.

And we had to repent of that because the focus must always be on Christ, but so often the focus is on us.

And this is nothing new, I'll tell you.

Uh 20 years ago, there was a YouTube video, some of you may have seen it called the Me Church.

Uh if you haven't, uh actually it's yeah, the Me Church.

And there's the announcer that comes on and he says, Imagine a church where every member is passionately, wholeheartedly, and recklessly calling the shots.

And so a man comes on, he says, You know, I have a busy week.

And uh when Sunday comes around, I'm tired.

How about a service that starts when I get there?

The announcer comes on and says, Can do, when you arrive, we begin.

Another person comes on and says, When I'm in the service, can my get a car, can my car get a buff and a wax?

The announcer says, Not just that, but an oil change and tune up as well.

And the tagline after everything is the Me Church, where it's all about you.

There's a popular chorus that seems to have been rewritten in some places where I lift my name on high.

I love to sing my praises.

This passage from the Gospel of John is the first of many examples of what I call kingdom math.

And it's really summarized in the text by the phrase that John uses.

He says, He must increase and I must decrease.

But it's also a summary, I think, of our relationships within the church and how they're to be conducted.

You know, kingdom math is not as simple as it sounds.

And well, we're going to see this morning three things.

First of all, the kingdom math is founded on the preeminence of Jesus, and it's informed by the authority of his teaching.

And third, it is a sign and seal for ourselves and others of his power and kingship.

So the first thing that we see here is the kingdom math is founded on the preeminence of Jesus Christ.

You know, John's disciples had what I call a John-centric view.

You see it in verse 26.

It says they came to John and said to him, Rabbi, that man who was with you on the other side of the Jordan, the one you testified about, well, he's baptizing, and everyone is going to him.

John had been preaching since the very beginning of his ministry that he was not the Christ.

You had the John chapter 1 up there, and where he says he's pointing to the Messiah, that he is the herald.

John 1 · chapter mention

And still some of his disciples don't get it, but he just keeps pointing to Jesus.

And so what happens is kind of a really a turf battle, I guess, it begins to form.

This is incredibly human, what is going on here.

John's disciples loved him.

They'd been with him, they'd ministered with him.

And isn't that the human way to want to protect the reputation of someone that we love?

One of the things that I remember as a new believer in reading the scriptures was how incredibly true they are to human nature.

Now, that that may not seem too surprising, but it sure was to me.

And one of the things that drew me there, you see, in the past year or two, they've really been heady ones for John.

Someone has said that he blazed across Judea like a shooting star.

Remember, he was the first prophet in 400 years.

Now think about this.

We're just celebrating our 250th, and that's farther back than any of us can really understand what the culture was like, what the people were like 250 years ago.

Add that, go back 400 years ago.

They had not heard from the Lord.

And now John is preaching, and amazing things are happening.

All eyes had been on him, from peasants to kings, and he had called them all to account, including the self-righteous Pharisees.

And it was amazing because when John spoke, God moved.

And people repented and were baptized after 400 years of silence.

No one had spoken like this man for 400 years.

From all over Palestine, people had flocked to hear him.

The oppressed had come, the weary people of God, the people who were just tired of the constant sacrifices.

They were tired of being relegated to sort of second-class citizenship because the leaders looked at them as a lower class of people.

They were sinners.

The leaders were great and were godly.

And they were tired of it.

They were tired of being condescended to.

And finally, finally they had hope again.

But even more, the disciples that were with John had been right in the middle of it.

They had seen revival.

None of us have ever seen revival in this country, the way the first and second great awakenings were, some of the other revivals.

None of us have seen that.

And I look forward to that, and I pray for that, and a desire to see God work in incredibly powerful ways.

And I can't imagine what that would be like to be in the middle of it.

And then abruptly they weren't.

That wave of enthusiasm had moved past them, had moved past John, and was now focused on Jesus.

How could their beloved rabbi, and quite frankly, them, you know, they with him, suddenly be relegated to the periphery after all that John had done and all that God had done through John?

But it's sort of interesting, he doesn't, when he answers them, he doesn't do what we Reform people would be tempted to do.

He doesn't give them a lesson on soteriology or Christology.

He doesn't tell them to go back to the Westminster Confession, chapter 8, on Christ the mediator.

But what he does, he explains it in terms that they can understand and that we can understand.

He talks about the preeminence of Jesus Christ.

We see it in verse 29.

Said the one who is the bride, one who has the bride is the bridegroom, the friend of the bridegroom who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice.

Therefore, this joy of mine is now complete.

He must increase and I must decrease.

Think about how incredibly absurd it would be if everything revolved around the best man in a wedding.

If the bride and the groom went to the best man, said, what colors should we have?

What should we eat?

Where should it be?

Who should do the service?

You know, we look at that and we say, that's absolutely insane.

In our society, it kind of goes in a different direction because the focus is almost entirely on the bride to the exclusion of the groom.

We have what David's uh David's bridal, not David's groomery.

But you know, we don't really think about that.

And I've heard when I've done um sometimes when I've done uh weddings, that the wedding coordinator will actually say to the groom, and I have to stop her from doing this usually, but say, okay, you're the groom, just go over there and stand and we'll tell you when to come and be part of this.

That is not the way the scriptures look at this.

The Bible presents a fuller and more radical view.

If you're familiar with Psalm 45, and we won't read it this morning, but it presents the groom in glowing terms, and it's the bridegroom who comes forth in splendor and awaits his bride, and he receives her.

We see the same thing that Paul talks about in Ephesians 5, where it says, so that he, Jesus, might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.

The picture, I think, that John is going for is very much what we see in weddings.

There is that moment when the bride and the groom come together in the front of the church or the chapel, and all eyes are on them.

Nothing else matters.

The music isn't important anymore, nothing is important, but we see the bride and the groom, and we see that in biblical terms.

The total focus is on each other, and everything else is superfluous.

There's an old hymn called The Sands of Time Are Sinking.

And some of you may know it.

It's usually played almost as a funeral, uh, funeral hymn, which is really odd.

Um, I think it's um there's a group that has put it to much more modern music.

But listen to this, and this is the very essence of what John is saying.

It says, the bride eyes not her garment, but her dear bridegroom's face.

I will not gaze at glory but on my king of grace, not at the crown he giveth, but on his pierced hand.

The Lamb is all the glory of Emmanuel's land.

He must increase, and we must decrease.

You know, for us the focus always has to be on Jesus and his beauty, and to remember that if it weren't for the bridegroom, we would not be the bride.

There would be no way.

We would not be the bride because he must increase, and we must decrease, because of his preeminence.

When Paul in Colossians chapter one, I I wish I wish I could have seen him write this.

It was obviously uh the Holy Spirit that was speaking through him, because to the Colossians, what he's doing, he's trying to explain and does magnificently the preeminence of Jesus Christ.

And for um in Colossians chapter 1, verse 15 and following, he says that he, Jesus, is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.

Colossians 1:15

For by him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth and under the earth, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities, all things were created by him and for him, and he is before all things, and in him all things hold together, and he is the head of his body, the church.

He is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the preeminence.

Do you hear that?

I can't imagine what that must have been like for him to write that as the Spirit is working through him.

But how do we do that?

I mean, that's a magnificent passage.

But how do we make him increase in our lives?

And how do we decrease?

Well, we have the ordinary means of grace.

We have the preaching of the word and prayer, the sacraments, um, fellowship and uh things that you do, the small groups and that kind of thing, which are incredibly important.

We call them the ordinary means of grace.

But I want to give just a couple of others, and there are many, but I want to give you a couple of things that actually have been helpful for me of practicing this art and grace of Jesus increasing and us decreasing.

One way, I believe, is involvement in foreign missions.

Now, we can't all go, but we can certainly pray.

We can certainly be informed about what God is doing around the world.

Uh I don't know how many of you are aware of a resource called uh Operation World.

Any of you know that?

It's online now.

It used to be a book, but they can't update it fast enough now.

And what it has is information on every single country in the world.

It talks about population data, uh, various what are the various religions, what are the hindrances to the gospel, what are the successes of the gospel, how to pray.

I mean, all just an incredible amount of information so that you can look at a country that you will never go to, might not have even heard of, and see what God is doing.

Begin to expand our horizon about what God is doing.

Our church, the church that I served in New York, had a very, very robust missions program.

We uh we spent 50% of our budget on missions, had about 50 missionaries.

And one of the things that was so incredible was once a year we'd gather as many of them as we could for a missions conference.

And we got to know them, we'd talk to them, we'd pray for them and hear uh what God is doing.

We had one missionary uh who was in Afghanistan as uh uh an optometrist, and he was murdered by the Taliban.

Uh but we but you learn how to pray and you learn from these people.

Now, you don't even have to necessarily do that.

If you have a college nearby, uh you you can have a college ministry outside of Reformed University Fellowship.

I'll tell you one thing that our college student that college students absolutely love is a good meal.

And so one of the things you can do is simply invite them if you have a potluck here or you um uh you invite them to your home.

Get to know them, especially if they're from out of this country.

Uh, we had a ministry to a place called Union College up in Schenectady, and and we had uh kids from all over the world who would come, and it was just such a great ministry.

There might be a particular ethnic group in your in your area.

Get to know them, uh, invite them, do uh, do those things.

I have a friend in seminary, uh from seminary named Ken Tomby, and he is ministering in Manipur, which is northeast uh northeast India.

I had certainly never heard of it before before I got to know him at seminary.

This is an amazing guy.

He's planted over 200 churches.

He has uh he started high schools, seminaries, a college, orphanages, and and a number of other things.

And every time his prayer list and prayer letter comes around, I get a new picture of what God is doing.

I can praise him and and extol greatly what Jesus is doing and the power and beauty of what Jesus is doing.

I get out of my little world.

Because my little world is bounded by the things that I enjoy, the people that I know.

I need I need it bigger.

I need to learn about what God is doing in other parts of the world.

And when I learn that, Jesus increases and I decrease.

Understand more of his power and his glory.

Second, um, A.

W.

Tozer.

A.W.

Tozer speaks of another way of increasing and decreasing, and he says this if modern Christians are to approach the spiritual greatness of Bible saints or know the inward delight of the saints of post-biblical times, they must cultivate the beauties of the Lord our God in sweet personal experience.

In other words, what he's what is he saying?

He's saying, how do we decrease while Jesus increases?

And he says, in achieving this happy state, a good hymn book will help more than any other book in the world except the Bible itself.

Now, I'm not talking about in your worship service, that's not what you guys do, and that's great.

Your uh songs are strongly biblical.

But I want to encourage you to get a really good hymnal.

I'm very biased, the Trinity hymnal.

I can get it online.

It's incredible.

It is, for those of you who don't know, it is set up theologically.

And so you can go through the hymns about the nature of God, the nature of Christ and salvation.

But the important thing is you don't have to know how to sing.

You might know some of the hymns, but you might not.

But the way to use it is devotionally read the poetry.

Don't worry, don't worry about the uh the music.

You can, if you know the music great, you can actually find it online.

Somebody has actually put up a bunch of YouTube videos of every hymn in the Trinity hymnal played on the piano.

So if you want to know, that's there.

But read and study and think about what these great saints have said about the nature of God, the nature of Christ, the nature of salvation.

Use that devotionally.

As we do that, we will more and more decrease.

And he says this, he goes on a great hymn embodies the purest, concentrated thoughts of some lofty saint who may have long ago gone from the earth and left little or nothing behind them except this hymn.

To read or sing a true hymn is to join in the act of worship with a great and gifted soul in his moments of intimate devotion.

It is to hear a lover of Christ explain to his Savior why he loves him.

It is to listen in without embarrassment to the softest whisperings of undying love between the bride and the heavenly bridegroom.

Tozer understood through this medium that we can decrease as Christ increases.

That's kingdom math, and is founded on the preeminence of Jesus Christ, but also kingdom math is informed by the authority of his teaching.

We see that in verses 32 and 34.

32 says he, Jesus, testifies to what he has seen and heard, but no one accepts his testimony.

For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of word of God, words of God, for God gives the Spirit without limit.

You know, John had seen Jesus, he'd lived with him, he'd baptized him, grown up with him, but I think most of all, he had heard him.

There was always a particular power in Jesus' words.

Earlier in this chapter is the narrative of Nicodemus.

And we certainly see the power of Jesus' words, where Jesus tells Nicodemus, you must be born again.

And he's touched by the Spirit of God.

At the end of the Sermon on the Mount, and you know that in one section of the Sermon on the Mount, he will go, you've heard it said, but I say to you.

You've heard it said, but I say to you.

He speaks of anger and lust and divorce, oaths and retaliation and loving enemies.

And after the Sermon on the Mount, the Bible tells us this.

When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching because he taught as one who had authority and not as their teachers of the law.

Now, I think we understand a little bit about the power of words.

At the dedication of the battlefield of Gettysburg on November 19, 1863, there were actually two speakers.

Most people only remember the one, Abraham Lincoln, but actually the featured speaker was a man named Edward Everett of Massachusetts, and he was a noted orator.

And he began, he gets up in front of the folks, and he speaks for two hours.

They were hardy folks because they were standing while he was speaking.

But he speaks of the meaning of the battlefield, the honor of the men, and all of the things that he said were absolutely true.

And then he finishes, and there's the applause that you'd expect, and he goes and sits down.

And Abraham Lincoln comes to the podium.

And he spoke just 272 words, just a couple of minutes, and then sat down.

Matter of fact, it went so fast that the man who was in the back taking pictures didn't have time to get that big bulky equipment focused, and so the only picture we have of that is when Lincoln is headed back to his seat.

And most people were embarrassed.

It was so short.

And one uh editor called it dishwater utterances.

But you know who didn't?

Edward Everett of Massachusetts.

And he sent Lincoln this letter.

He said, My dear Mr.

President, I wish I could flatter myself to have come as close to the central idea of the occasion in two hours as you did in two minutes.

See, there was a power in Lincoln, and if you've read his other speeches, you see there was a power and authority.

The biblical word is exusia for what Jesus had.

Look, do any of us the sorry, do any of us even know the first line or any line of Edward Everett's speech?

Of course we don't.

But we do, at least, if you don't know anything else, you know the first line of the Gettysburg Address, don't you?

Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

And to this day, over 260 years later, we're touched and amazed at the beauty and the cadence and the depth and the power of those 200 words.

The power and authority of Jesus' words were so infinitely greater.

Think about what the authority of his word was able to do.

Lazarus, come forth.

Call forth the dead.

Say to those, you must be born again, and by the Spirit they were.

To call people, say, uh take up your nets, drop your nets, take up your cross and follow me.

And he and they did.

He was able to call them to follow him, to sway and to draw because of the incredible power of the Holy Spirit, the one who is both God and man in the power of the Holy Spirit.

You see, Kingdom Math is founded on the preeminence of Christ and informed by the authority of his word, informed by the depth and power and beauty and cadence of the Word of God.

But third, we see the Kingdom Math as a sign and seal for ourselves and for others of His kingship.

And it's proved by the testimony of His work in our lives.

We see it in verse 13.

I'm sorry, 33.

Says, whoever, this is the NIV, whoever receives his testimony sets his seal to this, that God is true.

The ESV says the man who has accepted it has certified that God is truthful.

You know, as we learn to have Christ increase in our lives, it certifies Christ.

Now look, this is tricky.

What he's not saying, and what John is not saying, and what I'm not saying, is that the truth of God's word depends on whether I receive it or whether you receive it.

The word of God stands firm forever, whether it is received or not.

But what it is saying is that it's not a matter of Christ needing certification, that it is a seal for ourselves of what God by his spirit is doing in our lives, as he convinces us of our sin and misery, as he enlightens our minds in the knowledge of Christ, as he renews our wills and persuades and enables us to embrace Jesus Christ as he's freely offered in the gospel.

That certifies and seals those truths to us.

Do you remember when you became, maybe you don't, maybe it was a long time ago like me, but if you can remember when you first became a believer and you began to read the Word of God and you suddenly knew beyond any doubt that it was absolute truth, that God was speaking to you through the Holy Spirit in his word, that certified that for you.

But it's also a seal for others, in that Christ has the power to change lives.

It authenticates our message and proves that testimony of what God is doing.

And it proves it to the world that he is what he professes to be.

Christ is authenticated in how we deal with our relationships.

You know, there have been many, and I'm sure you've read the many articles and books about why people either don't go to church or why they leave church.

The prime reason always seems to be why just the way Christians treat each other.

Now, unfortunately, I think we can add politics to that.

You know, James in chapter four tells us a little bit more about what the heart is doing in all of this.

And James asks, what causes fights and quarrels among you?

Don't they come from your desires that battle within you?

You want something, but you don't get it.

You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want.

You quarrel and fight.

You don't have because you don't ask God.

And when you ask, you don't receive because you uh ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

What's James saying?

He says, You want to increase.

Well, of course I do.

That's my sinful nature.

That's our natural inclination.

In contrast to this, we we're to show God's work in our lives by appropriating the graces that Paul speaks of in Colossians 3.

I call them graces because I think too often when the Bible gives us a list of things, we almost treat them like we're gonna plug them in.

Okay.

Um, if I just do this more, I'll be okay.

If I just do this, I'm fine.

But that's not the way Paul is phrasing this.

In Colossians 3, they're not attributes or virtues, but they are graces given by the Spirit of God to his children to supernaturally conform us to his image.

And he says this.

Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gracious, gracious, I'm sorry, gentleness and patience.

Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another.

Forgive as the Lord forgives you.

See, there's the proof, the seal of God's power to change us and for Christ to increase in our lives.

But it's authenticated all um, it's authenticated because also we understand the nature of our sin and our need of Christ.

This is really a call to see the enormity of our sin and our constant need of Jesus and his righteousness.

Um, when you become members of PCA Church, you may remember the first membership vow.

Do you acknowledge yourself to be a sinner in the sight of God, justly deserving his displeasure and without hope, save in his sovereign mercy?

One Puritan writer said it this way as he prayed, recognizing his own sin and his need of Jesus.

He said, I have no robe to bring to cover my sins.

I have no robe, I'm sorry, to no loom to weave my own righteousness.

I am always standing in filthy garments, and by grace I am always receiving a change of raiment.

For through Christ you always justify the ungodly.

As I am always going into a far country and always returning as a prodigal, always saying, Father, forgive me, and you are always bringing forth the best robe.

Every morning let me wear it, every evening let me return in it.

Go out to the day's work in it, be married in it, be wound in death in it, and stand before the great white throne in it, enter heaven in it, shining as the sun.

That is certainly understanding the depth of our sin and our incredible need and the glorious work of Jesus Christ in our lives.

He sets his seal on us before others so that he might increase and we might decrease.

And finally, Christ's work in us is authenticated and how we deal with the joys and sorrows.

You know, people watch us, they watch as we deal with the ups and downs of life.

And we can turn into kind of a grievance machine.

And we see that sometimes we talk about how put upon we are as Christians, how we're persecuted and how terrible our society is, how much they hate us.

Of course they hate us.

What do you expect?

We're bringing the word of life to those who prefer death.

And so we're not victims, we're ambassadors.

Elizabeth Elliott could certainly have been terribly bitter about losing three husbands, but she said this.

She said, if he is God, he is worthy of my worship and my service, and I will find rest nowhere but in his will.

And that will is infinitely, immeasurably, unspeakably beyond my largest notions of what he is up to.

God is the God of human history, and he is at work continuously, mysteriously accomplishing his eternal purpose in us, through us, for us, and in spite of us.

And I dethrone him if I demand that he act in ways that satisfy my ideas of justice.

What's she reminding us of?

That he must increase, and we must decrease.

And so we see the kingdom math is founded on the preeminence of Jesus and the authority of his word informs it, and his spirit sets that seal upon us so that we and others will know of his power and his glory, and so that we can learn how to increase, uh, that he can we can learn how to make him increase as we decrease.

And this supper is a continual reminder that he must increase and we must decrease.

For we see his death and we're reminded of his love, and it is he who feeds us.

1 Corinthians 10 tells us, is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ?

And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ?

Because there is one loaf, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the same loaf.

And Jesus says in John 6, just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me.

This is the bread that came down from heaven.

Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever.

And so Jesus invites us to this table, reminding us that if we are to truly draw spiritual nourishment from this, that we must decrease as he increases.

And this is the table of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so if you are a baptized believer and a member of a Bible-believing church, you are welcome to participate with us.

We would delight in that.

It is a picture of the kingdom.

But if you have not committed your lives to the Lord Jesus Christ, or if you are living in open and unconfessed sin, then I encourage you to let the element not to come forward and take the elements, but to talk to one of the elders after the service.

Talk to them, let them introduce you to this wonder, wonderful, this incredible Savior that we have.

Let's pray.

Lord God, we thank you that Christ has commanded us to eat of this broken bread and to drink of this cup in remembrance of Him.

We praise you that you have added these promises.

First, that your body was offered and broken on the cross for us, and your blood shed for us, as certainly as we see with our eyes the bread of the Lord broken before us and the cup communicated to us.

We're blessed that you feed and nourish our souls to everlasting life with your crucified body and shed blood, as assuredly as we receive from the hands and taste with our mouths the bread and cup of the Lord, as certain signs and seals of your body and blood.

We praise you for the spiritual power and peace that are the gifts of your presence.