Inclusion & Exclusion

Good morning, Church.

Today's reading is from Mark 9, 38 through 50.

John said to him, Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he's not following us.

But Jesus said to him, Do not stop him, for no one who does a mighty work in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me.

For the one who is not against us is for us.

For truly I say to you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink, because you belong to Christ, will will by no means lose his reward.

Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.

And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off.

It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go into hell to the unquenchable fire.

And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off.

It is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell.

And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out.

It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, where there is where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.

For everyone will be salted with fire.

Salt is good, but if the salt has lost its saltiness, how will you make it salty again?

Have salt in yourselves and be at peace with one another.

This is the word of the Lord.

Please be seated.

Thanks for joining us this morning.

Um I threw out my back, that's why there's a stool up here, like a mega church pastor.

But the uh they all preach from stools.

I don't know if you've noticed that.

And little tables with laptops.

Which is cool.

But here we are at a minor church.

And uh uh thank you, thank you for joining us this morning.

Um we are uh continuing our series through through Mark, and we today are looking at uh some of the most intense teachings and sayings of Jesus in all of Scripture.

And they're about two themes really.

They're about inclusion for the first part of what Jesus describes to his disciples, and then about exclusion for the second part of what Christ teaches to his disciples.

So that's what we're looking at this morning.

We're looking at uh what does it mean to be included in the kingdom of God in Christ, and what does it mean to be excluded from the kingdom of God and from Christ?

So before we look at that, let's pray together.

Holy Father, we thank you for your loving kindness, and we thank you for the clarity that you give us of understanding in your teaching to the disciples and to us as your church of what it means to be a part of your kingdom, for the stark warnings that you give us for what it would mean to be excluded.

Lord, I pray that you would open our hearts to receive those as clearly and plainly as you teach them, and that you might make us wise to understand the standards by which you judge the world, and that we might understand how to look at the world through those same judgments, Lord.

We pray that we would understand the depth of your inclusion, how unimaginable it is, and the terror of being excluded from you, and how unimaginable that is.

Lord, we lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Inclusion and exclusion.

Um these are central paradigms for our public discourse.

There's uh it's not often framed in these terms that we're talking about inclusion and exclusion, but that that is often what our public discourse is framed around, that we're we're talking about who gets included and who gets excluded.

Uh we talk about borders and purity for the exclusion uh side of the conversation.

If you if your disposition is more toward exclusion, then we'd have an emphasis of borders and of uh purity and and uh making sure that those who should not be apart are not brought in.

And then on the other side, the inclusion side, we have uh discussions of uh of total inclusion, uh which also comes with a disintegration.

So one is about a love and preservation for a current identity, and one is about an inclusion, which is about the removal of all identity.

And these dispositions kind of work throughout any institution, really.

Uh I don't know if you've ever been a part of a here's a a classic church small group discussion.

Uh, this happens in every church that has small groups, and the conversation goes like this small groups should be open, and anyone should be able to come to them because we are a missional people and we want to include them.

We want to include people and bring people in.

And then somebody in the small group raises their hand and they said, No, no, we can't have depth of relationship with one another if there's always just new people flooding in and out.

We need time to get to know one another, and we need time to be able to develop who we are and develop the safety to understand who it is that we are as a people.

That's this same conversation.

And what we play this out at all sorts of levels of reality, this sort of tension of what does it mean to be uh exclusive and therefore have an identity which could uh move through time?

Uh and then what does it mean to be inclusive so that uh those who are on the margins could be brought in.

We see these principles play out in scripture.

In our public discourse, you can tell where the uh it's a kind of a shift in the language because if I were to say that we have a public discourse of exclusion, um, you would raise your hand only cynically, you know, and you can tell who where the the you know the culture typically has a thesis and an antithesis, and so what holds the thesis in our culture now is a narrative of inclusion.

And I I know this is true because when I say Jesus is inclusive of all people, you feel good.

But when I say Jesus will cast out the sexually immoral, the homosexual, the cowardly.

He is an exclusive Lord, then you think I probably shouldn't have invited my neighbor to this Sunday.

So you can see that there's an inclusion and an exclusion, and that these are somehow working together.

And and what how how will these meet?

Is it just dispositional and it's an impossible or or an unstoppable force meets an immovable object, and we're destined to do this for all eternity?

Look, I I I say all this, I say all this to say that we hear inclusivity virtuously.

We hear exclusivity is that's not virtuous, but that's not really true because when we see institutions become corrupt, what we say is why didn't they get rid of those corrupt people out of the institution?

If they got rid of those corrupt people out of the institution, the institution would have then been able to maintain its institutional integrity and would have been able to hold its identity over time.

So you're an exclusive, you you you believe in exclusion then.

My point is that when we when we hear these things, we our initial gut response is inclusion, good.

Exclusion, bad.

But that's not true.

Inclusion is not particularly good.

Exclusion is not particularly bad.

The question is, by what standard are you included?

And then by what standard ought you to be excluded?

That's the question.

So if anybody ever comes to you and says one of our values is inclusivity, you should think to yourself, no, it isn't.

That is uh that that's that's not a sufficient value on its own.

There must be some you're saying something else, you're smuggling something else in when you're telling me that one of your values is is inclusivity.

Uh because there's no such thing.

That that it's the same as saying um uh our uh our institution has no identity uh and and it uh it disintegrates.

There's there's we are we are absolutely amorphous and there's nothing there's nothing here that's touchable.

Um if somebody says that they're exclusive, um then they just think they're better than you, and they're probably not a good hang.

So both, you know, you gotta be w wise as serpents.

The question is not should we be inclusive or should we be exclusive?

The question is by what standard ought we include, and by what standard ought we exclude.

The question isn't should we be judgmental or non-judgmental?

The question is by what standard ought we to be judgmental?

This is what Christ brings us face to face with.

And he explains this to his disciples in this app in this most this most shocking way, some of the most stark language that we see Jesus use.

And you will see that as he describes the inclusion that is available for participation in the kingdom of God, it is almost unimaginably inclusive.

You will hear it in the language that Jesus uses, you will want to come to Jesus afterwards and say, the bar is too low for inclusion in the kingdom of God.

Christ, you have set the bar too low.

And this small group will just be a bunch of strange people coming in and out of it, and it's like nobody will ever even get the chance to know each other.

And then when you hear how he describes the stakes for being excluded from the kingdom of God, you will think this is impossible.

How could anyone possibly get in?

Who could there be who is willing to make such a sacrifice that is required to be a part of the kingdom of God?

And the answer to this riddle, to this bind that Christ puts us in is the standard is him.

Christ is the standard, and the stakes of inclusion are heaven, and the stakes of exclusion are hell.

And so, what must we make a decision about?

Who is Christ?

What does it mean to be in Christ?

So let's look at this first um lesson that Jesus expounds on and as he engages with this question from John, and this is where he describes the unimaginable inclusion of the kingdom of God.

Mark 9, 38.

John said to him, Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him because he was not following us.

So John explains the situation.

This is in the same conversation that we preached on last week.

Uh Jesus is uh sitting.

Remember, last week he drew a child to himself, and he explained that uh if you receive one, even one such child as this, that you receive Jesus.

And he says, and not just me, but you receive the one who sent me.

So Christ brings them into this.

What the disciple the disciples before Jesus said that, they were arguing about who was greatest in the kingdom of God, who's greatest in the kingdom of God.

And he brings a child and he says, If you res if you receive a child like this, then you receive God.

He says, if you were to be first, you must be last and servant of all.

So John had just heard this, and he's saying after just having argued about who was the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, now he's probably thinking, well, turns out I didn't really understand how greatness works.

Perhaps I don't understand even who is included in this project.

Even who is able to participate with Christ in these things that we seem to be participating with Christ in.

If I didn't understand what the ranking was in it, maybe I don't understand who's able to be a part of it.

So it's almost as if his conscience were pricked by Christ's explanation of greatness in the kingdom.

And John's questioning how he and the other disciples had handled an issue previously.

And so he explains, Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name.

And we tried to stop him because he was not following us.

So the man who is casting out demons in Jesus' name, we should not think that this is like some wizard who happened upon a great new spell, like this.

If I use this word Jesus, this really works now.

And it's not even like uh Simon, the magician in Acts, who comes to the apostles and says, You have some pretty great power with this Holy Spirit thing.

How much for the Holy Spirit?

Uh his it the highest compliment that a philosopher can be paid is if their name becomes an adjective.

Uh Simone off of Simon means trying to purchase the Holy Spirit.

So that's not, you don't want your name to his name became an adjective, and that's not not in a good way.

It's not like Aristotelian, which is just cool.

Also, the the color that I decided to paint our bathroom.

Sounds like it, but John explains.

So this man is not a wizard, he's not someone trying to purchase the Holy Spirit.

The man who was casting out demons in Jesus' name was a believer.

Someone who saw the power of Jesus, someone who trusted in the power of Jesus, someone who loved Jesus because of uh he he's operating with Jesus in his project.

He's he's not coaxing demons or he's not summoning the demonic power.

He is casting it out.

He is he is advan participating in the advancement of the kingdom of heaven by the name of Jesus.

Now, John and the other apostles see him.

They say, He is so so what he's doing is not bad.

In and of itself, he's not doing anything wrong.

In fact, it's it's even good and praiseworthy.

But John said, We tried to stop him because he was not following us.

John says, following us.

He's talking to Jesus.

A more appropriate way of phrasing it would have been, he's not following you.

Because he was not following you.

But that wasn't John's problem.

His problem was there's this other man who's not part of our inner circle.

And the real story that's happening with Jesus is the one that I'm a part of.

And any other story that's happening with Jesus, we should make sure is not a part of this.

We need to we need to protect the name of Jesus, we might say, and and keep it out of the mouths of people like that.

They just can't be trusted.

You know, we've got these 12 here.

There's a pretty good number.

We're present with Jesus.

We are seeing exactly what you're doing.

Lord, we have your teachings more clearly than anybody else could.

It's just dangerous to let just anybody, any of these people, be operating in the power in the name of Jesus, and so they try and exclude him and they try and stop the work of Christ in this man because he is not a part of their group.

So, what is the standard?

Is the standard by which John and the disciples are judging, is it that he is operating within a love of Christ?

No, the standard is are you a part of our group or not?

It's just parochial.

Jesus says in 939 through 34.

But Jesus said, Do not stop him.

For no one who does a mighty work in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me.

For the one who is not against us is for us.

The disciples were being intolerant and narrowly exclusive.

Their condemnation of the man is simply because he is not a part of their story with Christ.

So that becomes their standard of judgment.

Now we do this all the time.

We do this all the time.

I made fun of mega church pastors on my walk up here.

You know, we poke at these aesthetic differences.

And we we try and uh create, you know, modes of fashion to signal who is in our group and who is a part of our Jesus project, and who do we know we need to stay away from because they're a little funky and they're they're a little dangerous.

You know, we even do we do this with doctrinal streams.

I love doctrine.

I believe in good doctrine.

But I heard a wonderful description this week that I think is very true.

It's like an immune system for the church.

And that means that when it's working properly, it it snuffs out bad doctrine and it protects the health of the body.

But oftentimes we, as the church, develop these autoimmune disorders where it just runs rampant amongst ourselves and we're just creating further and further arbitrary divisions that have nothing to do with the standard of Christ.

They are our own.

They are about us.

And what are we doing there?

We're participating in the same game that we saw the disciples participating in last week, which is a way of saying, I can determine what greatness in the kingdom looks like.

Therefore, I know what it means to be a part of the kingdom.

I can define it and describe it, I can draw a picture of it, I could map it out on your calendar and say, if you do these things and live in this way, then you get to be a part of the story.

And there are plenty of people who line up because we want to be just told what to do.

You tried to live in the world?

Wouldn't it be nice if somebody just came in and said, just be this.

This is Christian.

I have found it.

Great.

I'll do that.

And part of that, the benefits, that's one of the benefits, you know, we we shouldn't think that there's uh there's personal benefits to exclusivity, uh, just as there are personal benefits to being boundaryless.

You know, when you're being when you're being boundryless, you never have to stand for anything so that you can pretend that you agree for everything.

When you're exclusive, you don't have to make decisions.

You just get to let them be made for you.

That's safe.

And then for the people who are not with you, you get to you.

We all heard that, right?

We get to uh we get to look down.

Jenna said no.

I I actually start to doubt my sanity now, and we oh no.

So there's there's there's we see the benefits working to the to the exclusivity uh and the and the feigned in inclusivity as well.

John and the other disciples might have thought something like uh we are being we are being courageous in protecting the name of Christ by keeping it out of the hands of uh or keeping it out of the mouth of this man who is not.

A part of us.

So imagine the surprise.

When they hear from Jesus, don't stop him.

And then the reason that Jesus gives, anybody who does something in the power of my name, he won't soon afterwards be able to speak evil of me.

You know, I just cast out Jesus.

I don't know if I'm a fan of the guy, but I use his name to cast out demons.

That's unlikely.

Jesus understands that that's an unlikely dynamic.

But doesn't his reasoning sound almost too?

Listen to this next phrase.

For the one who is not against us is for us, Jesus explains to John.

The one who's not against us is for us.

John might think, that might be a little, that bar sounds a little low.

All you've got to be is just not against us.

Now we've got to make sure that we understand what Jesus is saying when he says, the one who is not against us is for us.

That this is all it takes for inclusivity into the kingdom.

He's not saying that there is such a category as neutrality towards Jesus.

There is no, what do you in fact, in the very words themselves, he's eliminating the category of being neutral towards Jesus.

He's saying, if you are not against us, then you are for us.

Which means that if you think that you are neutral towards Jesus, you are against him.

That is the only other option.

There is no neutrality with Christ.

The standard of inclusivity, which Jesus is describing here, is absolute.

And it is Him.

Why does it appear so inclusive?

Why does it cross all of these boundaries that we would just be, we would so much rather not cross?

Because to have an open community makes it so hard to develop an identity that lasts across time that it feels like I can more simply participate in and understand because it's people who just think and act and look like me, and we've in our our our calendars line up.

Why this low bar of exclusivity?

Low bar, it is Christ Himself.

It's because the standard is not you.

The standard is not even your own story with Christ.

The standard is Christ Himself.

The door is Christ, and any may enter who come through that door.

Any may enter who come through the door, which is Christ.

Jesus goes on, for truly I say to you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ will by no means lose his reward, but is the small example.

If you're just given a cup of water, because you are in Christ, Christ receives that as though he himself were being loved and cared for by whoever is loving and caring for his body in that way.

He says, this is sufficient.

This is evidence enough of their love for me and of their love for who I am and for this project that I am doing.

If anyone even just gives me a cup of water, they won't be denied their reward.

And what is their reward?

Their reward is that Christ himself will not deny them before the Father.

Their reward is that at the end, when he is parsing sheep and goats, he says, You gave me water when I was thirsty.

And they would say, When did we ever see you thirsty and give you water?

And he said, Whenever you did for the least of these, because he was in Christ, I counted that as you doing that for me, and I saw that as love.

Welcome, because of the cup of water, as evidence of your love towards me.

Welcome to eternal glory.

How low could the bar be?

One cup of water, don't you feel?

And remember how is he saying this?

He's saying this with a child sitting in his lap after he just explained, if you welcome the least of these, the cup of water in the child, don't you see the he's using these examples of the smallest things he can think of.

The the the most simple, the lowest bar, but what do they demonstrate?

Love for Jesus.

This is the bar, Christ.

Now imagine what this sounds like to John as he reflects back on this.

I saw a man who was demonstrating and operating in a love for Christ.

And did I love him and serve him and bring him a cup of water, so to speak?

No, I cut him out.

I excluded him from the story of Christ because he wasn't a part of my story.

So what might John think?

What comfort is this the simple inclusion that's offered for the simple act of giving a cup of water, this small act of love?

Now John reflects back and think, I was excluding, preventing from coming to Christ.

By judging by my own standard, am I included?

Have I shown love in the way that Christ is showing love?

Do I love him and love the people that love him?

If inclusion was, if excuse- excuse me, if exclusion might have been on John's mind, well, Jesus goes right there.

And now after describing the unimaginable, what this is one cup of water for an eternal glory is the way that Jesus frames this.

That is the inclusion available, the standard that just seems unthinkably low.

He goes on to describe what is how one might be excluded from the kingdom.

In Mark 9, 42, remember there's a child sitting on his lap.

He says, Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.

So who is excluded?

Well, he describes whoever would cause one of these little ones.

And you know, there's something about birth and death that are just clarifying.

And I think that there's this sense of Jesus holding this baby and maybe baby child, and just recognizing the preciousness.

And you can hear it in the way that Jesus is communicating here.

Look at the value here as he's talking to hearts like ours, which he understands are so eager to exclude and to betray Christ.

Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.

Even causing to sin the least of these, those in the kingdom who might seem to be the least consequential, whose sins might seem to look, what do they, what do the sins of these children matter to the to the institution of the church that Christ might build?

To the overthrow of Rome that the disciples might be hoping for?

What might the sins of the children matter towards that?

Hardly any at all.

Why would they matter at all?

Practically speaking.

But why they would matter is because Jesus loves them.

And so he describes here an incredible vengeance that he will execute on their behalf to those who would lead a child into sin and abandonment of who Christ is.

A millstone, I don't know how often you guys, if any of you grind your own wheat by a show of hands, I buy mine ground.

And a millstone is the top stone that the word here is actually a donkey stone.

So it's the one that would be towed, pulled around by a donkey.

So this isn't like a hand mill, like many of you use.

This is the one that you use your donkey for.

It's a very heavy stone.

Uh, and it would have a hole in the middle that it would rotate around on that you could fit around a man's neck.

And so the the image of being thrown into the ocean with a millstone around your neck, uh, he says that would be better.

That'd be better to go down with no hope of escape and a torturous, drowning death, to lead one of these children astray.

Keep an eye out then.

Keep an eye out for those people who would lead children astray.

Come to the rescue of the children, stand in the way of those who would lead children astray, stand in the way of those who would operate in some false narrative, who would try and coax a child towards some image of Christ of, you know, Christ is a good teacher.

There's a lot to learn from him.

But really, the way that we operate out here in the world is you can you can just kind of accept the goodness of Christ, but really just be neutral towards him.

Because there's a real you in there that needs to be liberated.

Come participate in this liberation of your true self and who you are, abandon your submission to Christ.

Oh, it sounds so wonderful.

It would be better for a millstone to be tied around that person's neck and them thrown into the ocean than to coax a child into thinking that they can live in some way that is neutral towards Jesus, than to teach them that the true liberty is in their sexual liberty, that the true identity is in the identity that they could choose for themselves.

It would be better if a millstone were hung around their neck and they were thrown into the ocean than that they would say that to a child.

Because Jesus loves that child.

He has his intentions for that child, and and he will have his vengeance on their behalf.

Whoever, whoever, that person ought to be excluded.

So keep an eye out.

Keep an eye out.

Where is it that that danger lurks?

Well, what does Jesus say next?

From whoever Jesus switches to a uh, and if you, and if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off.

It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire.

And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off.

It is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell.

And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out.

It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.

You have to hear this with Jesus holding the child on his lap, because you've got to see the preciousness with which he understands the lives of his people.

And he is saying, value things rightly.

There is an eternity coming towards this child.

Seek to preserve that for the child.

There is an eternity coming towards you.

Seek to preserve that for you.

You will lie on your deathbed.

And on the other side of a blink, there will be an eternity waiting there for you.

What will you find?

How will you consider your life?

How will you look down at your hands and think it may perhaps if they weren't there, I would not have been so wicked.

Eyes, feet, hands.

You know, we can we understand these things.

This is what you do.

These are the actions, the things that you make with your hands.

Your feet, these are where you go.

The places where you choose to take stands or not take stands, the places where you the the groups that you choose to identify with or make sure you're not too closely identified with.

Your eyes.

It's your attention.

Where you fixed your gaze, what you gave your focus, what you gave your worship.

How will you look back on those things on that moment on a bed?

When on the other side of a blink you will meet eternity.

Can you have this clarity?

The preciousness that Jesus sees as he holds the child, as he looks at his disciples.

Cut it off.

There is no neutrality with Christ.

But if there is any entertaining of sin, we will fall.

And the punishment is unimaginable.

He says, you need to, we can put this, for example, back in our language of inclusion and exclusion.

If you are excluded from heaven, this means that you are included in hell.

Where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.

Worm does not die.

This is an internal torment, as though there's something squirming inside of you.

This is your conscience, and it will never be appeased.

And fire is never quenched.

This is the wrath of God, and it will be experienced eternally.

Eternal, conscious torment.

And how much more tormenting when you understand that what was the bar that I might have been excluded from hell and included in heaven?

It could have been a cup of water, you're telling me.

Bound for eternity because I did not give a cup of water when I ought to have?

Could the bar have been so low?

Could you imagine a greater torment?

How much worse to be in hell for a foolish sin that you just entertained?

How much worse to be in hell knowing that the opportunity for escape was not a when we see how low the bar is that Christ offers for entrance into heaven.

Everyone in hell is a near miss.

Imagine the torment.

Thomas Brooks writes this.

But this is not all.

Not only shut out from the presence of God and angels, but shut up with devils and damned spirits forever.

Not only shut out from those sweet, surpassing, unexpressible, and everlasting pleasures that be at God's right hand, but shut up forever under those torments that are ceaseless, remedyless, and endless.

Ah, souls, were it not 10,000 times better for you to break off your sins by repentance than to go on in your sins till you feel the truth of what now you hear?

There's a day coming where you will feel the truth of what now you hear.

Would it not be better?

Who can cut off their own hand?

Who can gouge out their own eye?

Who can chop off their own foot for this?

Oh, but what is the standard?

Don't you see it is Christ?

It is Christ.

You see, there is no neutrality.

Repent.

Come to him.

Oh, but he might not receive me.

He he would receive for a cup of water, he would offer eternal glory.

Your sin is too great.

It is for sinners that he went to the cross.

It is for sinners that he was sent into the world, that he might die on their behalf, that we might be rescued by him.

For him to deny you on account of that and your repentance towards him would be to deny the very mission that he was sent on from God, would be to deny his own nature.

It is impossible.

Who are you when the standard is just Christ?

Who are we when we see that the standard is Christ?

Radically inclusive.

Radically exclusive.

This is a deep mystery.

And Jesus goes somewhere almost unthinkably practical.

For everyone will be salted with fire, he says.

That is, no one will not be tested.

Everyone gets burned.

The question is, does it burn off that which is wicked and preserve that which is good in you?

Because you are found to be in Christ?

Or do you burn eternally?

Salt is good.

You're here.

But if the salt has lost its saltiness, how will you make it salty again?

There is a point of no return.

There is a time when judgment is passed.

It cannot be recovered.

So Jesus says, understanding the stakes, understanding the value, with a child in his lap, and these disciples who just can't seem to get what he's doing.

After all of what he's explained, he says, so have salt in yourselves.

Have love for me.

Have love for those who love me.

He says, be at peace with one another.

It's the same thing.

Don't wrongfully exclude those who are in me.

Because you've missed the standard and you've made it something about yourselves and you have not, you've lost sight that the standard is Christ.

Love one another like you love me.

Have joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control.

Be of those things.

Let those things well up in you as you see the sacrifice that I have made for you and the depth of love that I have shown towards you.

As you see the way that I have made the standard for entrance into heaven have nothing to do with you, but have everything to do with me, so that you who could never make it will be able to reap an eternal reward from what I will sow.

Treat one another according to the love with which I have treated you.

Receive the depth of love that I have given to you.

Be salt here.

Cut off the sin.

You understand the stakes.

Do not meddle with it.

Christ is the standard.

Do not doubt.

There is no other standard.

It is Christ.

Unimaginably inclusive.

Unimaginably exclusive.

It is Him we must see.

Look to Christ.

Repent.

There's still time.

Are there any questions today, Carlos?

What must I do to be saved?

Anyone?

Repent and believe in Jesus Christ.

He's God's only son.

He was sent from heaven that he might die on behalf of sinners.

Bore the wrath of God on your behalf.

He says, Come to me, I will gather you in.

He is sufficient to avoid the depths of hell and to receive an eternal reward.

See what he has done for you.

Paul writes, For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night when he was betrayed, took bread.

And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, This is my body which is for you.

Do this in remembrance of me.

In the same way also he took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood.

Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

This is the Lord, who, because of the depth of his love towards us, while we were yet sinners, he died for us.

He invites us to a meal.

Says, This is my body which is broken for you.

This is my blood, which is poured out for you.

It is a new covenant.

And what is the covenant?

I will be your God.

You will be my people.

The sacrifice has been made.

The atonement accomplished.

A future secured.

And what is the standard?

It is Christ.

Christ alone.

Come to him.

Be formed to make right judgments in the world.

Not by your own standard, your own parochial standard.

By the standard of Christ.

Our only hope is that we might be judged by the standard of Christ.

But if you do not come to Him, the most fearful thing is that you will be judged by the standard of Christ.

Holy Father, as we come to this meal, we come because you bid us.

We come because you came to get your people back.

Lord Jesus, let us come to the table.

I pray that as we come to the table this morning, that in our hearts we would be coming, seeing the unimaginable invitation that's extended our way.

In the glory of what we have to look forward to, in the joy of having escaped hell, of a debt having been removed.

Lord, let us celebrate at this, let us celebrate this feast together.

And let us be salt in our celebration.

At peace with one another, giving to one another because of what you've given to us.

Lord, we lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.