Loving Discipline

Morning.

Hear now the word of the true and living God, Genesis twenty-nine, starting in verse fifteen.

Then Labon said to Jacob, Because you are my kinsman, should you therefore serve me for nothing?

Tell me, what shall your wages be?

And now Labon had two daughters, the name of the older was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel.

Leah's eyes were weak, but Rachel was beautiful in form and appearance.

Jacob loved Rachel, and he said, I will serve you seven years for your younger daughter, Rachel.

Laban said, It is better that I give her to you than that I should give her to any other man.

Stay with me.

So Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed to him but a few days because of the love he had for her.

Then Jacob said to Laban, Give me my wife that I may go into her, for my time is completed.

So Laban gathered together all the people of the place and made a feast.

But in the evening he took his daughter Leah and brought her to Jacob, and he went into her.

Laban gave his female servant Zilpah to his daughter Leia to be her servant.

And in the morning, behold, it was Leia.

And Jacob said to Labon, What is this you have done to me?

Did I not serve you for Rachel?

Why then have you deceived me?

Laban said, It is not so done in our country to give the younger before the firstborn.

Complete the week of this one, and we will give you the other also in return for serving me another seven years.

Jacob did so, and completed her week.

Then Labon gave him his daughter Rachel to be his wife.

Labon gave his female servant Bilha to his daughter Rachel to be her servant.

So Jacob went into Rachel also, and he loved Rachel more than Leah, and served Labon for another seven years.

This is the word of the Lord.

Please be seated.

Morning.

Filling in for James this week, giving him a little time to study for Greek.

So I think I got the better end of the deal than he did.

So first I'm gonna go ahead and pray, and we're gonna kind of set up where we are in this story.

Um continuing on from last week, the story where of where we are with Jacob.

So let me pray and we'll get started.

God, thank you for this church.

Um and thank you for your word.

Uh God, we just uh we're grateful for uh for these stories that that are real that you have put in your word that we can learn from um from your people.

And uh God, I just asked that uh that um you would just open the hearts of of those hearing um your word this morning, and um we just thank you that um your word never returns void.

I pray that this morning be profitable.

Um we pray these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.

So I'm gonna go ahead and kind of set up where we are.

Um if you recall last week, Jacob's traveling, and he's he's he's he's on the way to his uh his mother's family's land.

This is Laban.

Um at least where I come from, we call it Laban.

So uh, and uh so where we are is the reason that he's traveling, the reason why is um he's actually on the run from his brother Esau.

He's he's fearful that Esau is going to kill him.

And the reason that is, is because if you guys remember back, um Jacob has deceived Esau now, not once, but twice.

So the first time, remember Esau comes in, he's hungry, Jacob's got some stew, um, he he'd like some stew to eat, and then he says, Give me your birthright.

So he so he cheats him essentially out of his birthright, and then later on, when his father Isaac wants to bless Esau, the older son, um Jacob goes in, puts the hair on his arms, and kind of swoops in and gets that blessing from his father before Esau.

So, see, the problem is not actually that Jacob received these blessings.

That was God's intention.

In fact, God even told Isaac and Rebekah when when the twins, when they were in uh her belly, they uh God told them, the older will serve the younger.

So the problem is not that Jacob actually received these blessings.

Jacob was always intended to receive these blessings, to be the recipient of this covenant with God.

The problem was the way that Jacob went about receiving this blessing was essentially without God.

He took what he knew to be a promise of God, and then he took it into his own hands.

See, we see we actually see this pattern in this, uh in his family in scripture.

This happened with uh Abraham, so his grandfather, when he was promised a son, and waiting, waiting, no son.

So finally, um uh his wife Sarah says, Hey, why don't you sleep with my servant so that we can have a son?

And then um, and he does.

And next we see the same thing is happening with Isaac.

Isaac's trying to take things into his own hands and give the blessing to the son that it was not intended to be given to.

And now we see Jacob also in that same dynamic, taking it into his own hands, not trusting that God would actually give him the blessing, give him the covenant that that was promised to him.

So, but you see, um, God's ways are not our ways, and his timing is rarely our timing.

Um, he's my dad, my dad actually said this uh this past week, but he said, God's never late, but he's seldom early.

And I I think that's I think that's true.

God is he's on time, and and it's it's rarely on the same time that we're operating on.

It says um it says in Numbers 2319, God is not man that he should lie, or a son of man that he should change his mind.

Has he said and will he not do it, or has he spoken and will he not fulfill it?

So see, this is the God that we serve.

Now, so now Jacob has found himself in this place, traveling, and we're gonna pick up the story, Genesis 29.

So I'm gonna actually read the first 14 verses of Genesis 29, and this is really gonna set the stage for where we are, and then we're gonna spend most of our time in the second part of uh that you heard Sebastian read.

I thought about recapping this and just kind of setting this up on my own, but it turns out um I think scripture can just say it better than I can.

So I'm gonna go ahead and read through this, and that'll kind of get us to where we are.

So Genesis 29, verse 1.

Genesis 29:1

Then Jacob went on his journey and came to the land of the people of the east.

As he looked, he saw a well in a field, and behold, three flocks of sheep lying beside it.

For out of the well the flocks were gathered.

The stone on the well's mouth was large, and when all the flocks were gathered there, the shepherds would roll the stone from the mouth of the well and water the sheep.

But the stone and put the stone back in its place over the mouth of the well.

Jacob said to them, My brothers, where do you come from?

They said, We are from Heron.

He said to them, Do you know Laban, the son of Nahor?

They said, We know him.

He said to them, Is it well with him?

They said, It is well.

And see, Rachel, his daughter, is coming with the sheep.

He said, Behold, it is still high day and not time for the livestock to be gathered together.

Water the sheep and go pasture them.

But they said, We cannot until all the flocks are gathered together, and the stone is rolled from the mouth of the well.

Then we water the sheep.

While he was still speaking with them, Rachel came with her father's sheep, for she was a shepherdess.

Now as soon as Jacob saw Rachel, the daughter of Laban, his mother's brother, and the sheep of Laban, his mother's brother, Jacob came near and rolled the stone from the mouth from the well's mouth, and watered the flock of Laban, his mother's brother.

Then Jacob kissed Rachel and wept aloud, and Jacob told Rachel that it that he was her father's kinsman, and that he was Rebecca's son, and she ran and told her father.

As soon as Laban heard the news about Jacob, his sister's son, he ran to meet him and embraced him and kissed him and brought him to his house.

Jacob told Laban all these things, and Laban said to him, Surely you are my bone and my flesh, and he stayed with him a month.

So this is the same location that we saw in Genesis 24, when Abraham sent his servant to find a wife for Isaac.

Same place.

And the story, uh, there's actually a lot of similarities, a lot of parallels, but there's one, there's one distinction that we can make from the servant in Genesis 24 to Jacob here.

And this is this has still been consistent with what we've seen from Jacob's life so far, and that is when the servant comes to find a wife for Isaac, he's seeking the Lord the entire time.

He's he is praying to God to provide for him and to show him exactly what he ought to do and where he ought to go.

Jacob's never recorded as doing that.

We don't see that at all in these in this text.

In fact, he just kind of does what it is he thinks he should do.

He even, as it looks like, shows off for the pretty girl, moves the big rock from over so they can get the water, moves it back, tries to make good rapport with this family.

And and we even see the arrogance and kind of the brashness in Jacob when he asks Laban for uh to marry her.

He said that he, in verse 18, that he will serve for seven years.

The reason that's kind of significant is because back in those days, um, if the the man or the man's family would pay the bride's family, they call it a bride's price.

And seven years, um, the equivalent amount of money that that would be um, this is about three times that.

So, right out the gate, Jacob is exaggerating.

Jacob is saying, Well, I could work for you for a third of this, but I'm gonna do seven years.

Okay, so again, he's taking this all into his own hands.

And this is what we see.

So, in order to in order for God to fulfill the promise to Jacob that we heard about last week, remember to make him a great nation, to father, um, to be the father of the nation of Israel, to eventually even bear that name's sake.

Um eventually his name will actually be changed to Israel.

God must work in him.

God needs to form him into this man.

And thus far, his life has been marked with deceit, self-made mentality.

So, what God's gonna do is God's gonna discipline Jacob.

That's what we're that's what we're gonna spend our time looking at today, is how God disciplines Jacob in this in this story.

So we see it here in verse 25, and in the morning, behold, it was Leah.

Jacob's like, oh no, this is not good.

This is this is not the woman that I thought I married.

Um and Jacob said to Laban, what is it you have done to me?

Did I not serve you for Rachel?

See, and Laban actually never uses the name of his daughter, by the way.

So Laban was being very sneaky in this.

And Jacob's just figuring this out.

Did I not serve you for Rachel?

Why then have you deceived me?

And this is really the jab.

This is really the point that must have sank in for Jacob, what is happening.

Laban said, It is not so done in our country to give the younger before the firstborn.

See, Jacob is the younger.

The promise that Jacob received that the older will serve the younger.

So this is just another little, just a poke, just a jab that Laban is giving him that must be landing in Jacob.

So the deceiver here is getting deceived.

This is a very particular way that the Lord is disciplining Jacob.

And this is the way that, this is the way God works.

He works very particularly in us, in his children, to discipline his children.

This is not, this is not karma.

This is not, you put out good, you get some good back, you put out bad, you get some bad back.

Maybe a mix of that.

This is not the way that God works.

The way that God works is he pursues his children.

He pursues Jacob as a loving father pursues his child.

And he disciplines him in a particular way, exactly in the place that his sin has been manifesting itself for his entire life up to this point.

Proverbs 3, 11 and 12 says this My son, do not despise the Lord's discipline, or be weary of his reproof.

For the Lord reproves him who he loves as a father, the son in whom he delights.

So over and over again we see a lot in Proverbs, actually, that this equation of God's discipline to us is he uses the example of a father's discipline to his child, a parent's discipline to their children.

See, but we live in a culture that actually hates discipline.

We live in a culture where you can't, it's unloving to even disagree with somebody and more or less call them out on the sin in their life.

So I want to read 2 Samuel 7, 8 through 16.

This is an amazing parallel that we see in Scripture.

And I want you to keep in mind the covenant that God made with Jacob last week that we heard as I'm reading this.

And this is a covenant that God made with David, with King David.

And uh it's it's uh Nathan the prophet is speaking and telling him these things.

So just kind of tuck that away as we read through this.

It says, Now therefore, thus you shall say to my servant David, thus says the Lord of hosts, I took you from the pasture, from from following the sheep, that you should be prince over my people Israel, and I have been with you wherever you went, and have cut off all your enemies from before you, and I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth, and I will appoint I will appoint a place for my people Israel, and I will plant them so that they may dwell in their own place, and be disturbed no more, and violent men shall afflict them no more as formerly, from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel, and I will give you rest from all your enemies.

Moreover, the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house, when your days are fulfill are fulfilled, and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom.

He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.

Now listen to this I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son.

When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, and the stripes of the sons of men, but my steadfast love will not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you, and your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me, your throne shall be established forever.

Do you see those parallels?

He's promising things to Jacob, he or to David, as he promised things to Jacob.

He's saying that I will make your name great, I will extend your line, your kingdom will never end.

He's ultimately talking about Jesus here, by the way, who will come from the line of David.

But what was interesting is in this covenant, in these blessings, in these amazing things that God is promising, these things that we would say, yes, I want that.

I want that.

These are good things.

He says, I'm gonna be to him a father, and you're thinking, Great.

He says, when he commits iniquity, I'll discipline him with the rod of men.

You're going, uh-oh.

That doesn't sound so great.

That sounds really hard.

But that is exactly what God says in conjunction to him being a loving father.

So, see, the discipline of the Lord is necessary to become who God intends us to be.

And it's necessary for who God intends our children to be.

It's we can't, I can't talk about the discipline of the Lord without talking about the disciplining of kids.

This is a very relatable thing, as a lot of us have young kids.

And and this is the exact analogy that the Lord uses in Scripture.

Proverbs 13, 24 says, He who spares the rod hates his son.

Hates his son.

But he who loves him disciplines him diligently.

See, this is just another thing where where what we hear in culture and what the Bible says are complete opposite of one another.

In a book, and I think there's a couple categories of discipline that we need to talk about.

Um, and this this is helpful.

In a book called Why Children Matter by Doug Wilson, it says, he says this once we have accepted the duty of administering parental discipline, we discover that discipline falls into two categories, corrective and formative.

Corrective discipline is correction of manifested sins in the past, as well as correction with regard to the future.

Format discipline anticipates temptations that are common to man and seeks to instill certain character traits beforehand.

Okay.

So what we're gonna do, let's so let's talk about these two categories.

Let's first talk about um the disciplining of sin, of a manifest sin.

And what that looks like practically um is not allowing our children to remain in sin.

And so what this looks like, uh what this looks like in my house, actually, is um is if one of my kids requires discipline.

Yeah, I'm talking about you, Homeless.

Um it's okay.

Um requires discipline.

Um I I asked them to go into my room and wait for me, and they know what that means.

And yeah, and and it's um, yeah, it's tough to, you know, what do you think about it?

But in and we sit down and uh and I look at them, whichever, you know, whichever one, and there's tears, you know, they've got tears, and and they know it's coming, right?

And through that, there's there's the discipline, and then there's the forgiveness, the restoration that happens.

But the most amazing part it's a little emotional, to be honest, but the most amazing part is after that something very counterintuitive happens.

They cling to me.

Right?

You'd think that they'd want to put a distance.

Um, but they don't.

And the reason why is because they understand that even in a young age, this is not this is not punishment.

Okay, this is discipline, and this is discipline from a parent who's more concerned about the formation of their heart than about a temporary pain that they're that they're receiving.

It tells us in Hebrews, it's uh it tells us in Hebrews, discipline is unpleasant in the moment.

It's I think that's it, but it says it will produce the fruit of righteousness.

Okay?

That's what we want for our kids.

That's what we want for ourselves.

Is that is the fruit of righteousness.

And according to this, that only comes after the discipline.

Now let's talk about the other kind of discipline, the formative discipline that we heard in that quote.

So, see, discipline's not always a response to sin.

Um we know that hardships happen in our in our lives.

We see evidence in the Bible of Job, of Jesus, guys that they had hardship upon them, and it wasn't in response to sin.

And yet God still brings discipline.

It tells us in James 1, Count at all joy, my brothers, when, not if, but when you face trials of many kinds.

For you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.

See, that's that's a discipline, those trials that God is applying to your life.

He's looking to produce something there.

That's not necessarily in response to sin.

So if you look at that with the way that would look with children, is we're looking is things like we can do we can do hard things.

We can they need to apply themselves to their schoolwork, which is difficult.

Um it's teaching them, moving them along.

How do you how do you act in public?

How do you speak to adults?

Gentle correction.

See, these are not things that are in response to sin.

Um praying with them, reading scripture with them.

These are all disciplines that will that are meant to produce fruit in them, that are that are meant to build them up so that when they do face an opposition in the future, which they will, um, that they're ready for that.

And for us, I think you know, a really a really easy analogy here um is working out.

We've apparently got this like growing underground workout in the garage CrossFit culture thing going on here.

So you guys will definitely, if not, talk to Ryan Bowen.

Um he'll he'll get you he'll get you plugged in.

But um, and I'm no exception, I've got these two guys, uh two of my good friends, they show up at my house every Tuesday and Thursday morning at six o'clock, and we go, we work out in my basement.

And it it is not always pleasant.

It's it it hurts sometimes.

It's but the goal of the goal of that, the goal of working out, the goal of exercise is you're looking you're looking to produce strength in the future.

Maybe you want to ride your bike further, maybe you want to run faster, maybe you want to um lift as much as Ed Fuller.

I don't know, but there's something in the future that you're looking to become stronger for.

And so that's what you're doing, is you're literally doing something that is actually you're tearing your muscles down in order that they can be built back stronger.

This is that kind of formative discipline in a practical way.

But God does this for us.

God puts things in our lives that are not necessarily a response to your sin to strengthen you in order to prepare you for something in the future.

So, and and a way to kind of know the difference is just to examine our lives.

Where does our sin lie?

Is there something in my life that God is particularly trying to remove from it?

A sin that he's trying to remove from it, or is he simply working us out?

Okay, um, it's hard as I move through this, it's it's hard to talk about the discipline of the Lord without also talking about the wrath of God.

Um got a really popular sermon here going this morning.

So far, we got discipline, now we're gonna talk about wrath.

So um thanks, James.

Uh at any rate, um, but the reason why that's important is because what we see here is that is that if the discipline, if this is what the discipline of the Lord looks like, then what does the wrath of God look like?

Because what culture would tell you is that, well, if God loved you, he wouldn't want you to have anything difficult.

He certainly wouldn't cause anything hard in your life.

He just wants you to be happy, right?

Well, that's not that's not the way that God works.

Um, see, actually, what the wrath of God looks like, the wrath of God looks like the absence of that discipline.

It looks like the it looks like the withdrawal of his hand from your life, left to sit and wallow in your sin and get exactly what it is that your flesh wants.

C.S.

Lewis says it like this in his book, The Great Divorce.

He said, There's only two kinds of people in the end.

Those who say to God, Thy will be done, and those to whom God in the end will say, Thy will be done.

It says, Fine.

My wrath is you getting what it is that you want, what it is that you think will make you happy.

But for those of us who are in Christ, we can take comfort.

Because God is a kind Father who disciplines his children out of love in order to bring us closer to himself.

So then, so then the question then becomes okay, then how do we know that we can trust him?

How do we know that we can trust that his discipline is actually for our good?

How do we know that?

What evidence do we have that these hardships, that these things that God puts us through are actually for our good?

It's because he went to the cross.

Okay, so like Jacob, whose life has been marked with deception and deceit, taking the promises of God into his own hands to execute on by his own strength, God reaches down, picks him up, applies discipline to his life, and eventually he's gonna give him a new name.

This name, Jacob, that's been plaguing him for this time, that means grabber of the heel, this this thing that he's been that's been manifesting, he's going to replace that name with the name that will that that will actually with a name that the nation of Israel will bear.

So this is this is a small this is a small story in the larger story of redemption, which what happens is in it's not long, you have to read the Bible very long before all of a sudden we see deceit enter the world.

Right?

The serpent comes, deceives Eve, she eats the apple, turns, gives it to Adam, he eats the apple, and all of a sudden we've got sin.

And it all happened by deception.

And then we have what we've been learning in Genesis so far.

We've got God's chosen people, a nation being made.

And what we're gonna find as you read through scripture, they reject him over and over and over again.

So then we've got, and so then we come to Jesus.

Jesus is born.

And when Jesus is born, this nation, this chosen people, they're not even in their own country now.

They've been completely taken over by the Roman Empire, they don't even have their own country, but then Jesus comes and he brings he brings hope, he brings peace, he brings healing, he brings miracles, he brings life.

And then what happens?

Well, they murder him, they kill him.

And again, we see the story does not look like it's panning out.

It looks like death and deceit and deception have actually won, but then we get to see we can celebrate in a couple weeks, right?

What happens in an instant?

He walks out of the tomb.

And death and deceit, they're destroyed.

That's how you know that you can trust him.

See, like I said earlier from Isaiah, his ways are not our ways, they're higher than our ways.

So when the God who conquered death reaches down and applies discipline in your life, humbly receive it.

Be grateful for it.

Because we know and we can be comforted that if that is happening, if you're being disciplined by the Lord, that means he loves you.

It means you are his.

So we pick up the story in verse 27.

Jacob ends up working for another seven years so that he can he can finally marry the woman that he had originally planned on marrying.

Um and one of the things that's worth pointing out here is that during this time when Jacob is serving, and we'll see this in the verses to come, um, but when as Jacob is serving all of this time under Laban, Jacob is very successful.

Jacob gains a lot of wealth during this.

Um, he'll ultimately end up having uh 12 sons that will represent the 12 tribes of Israel.

And so there are blessings that come from the Lord.

So if you are having a time in your life that is marked with blessing, that doesn't, that isn't the wrath of God.

That doesn't mean that he's removing his hand from you.

There's there's blessing that comes, especially after the discipline happens, after that heart change.

When God does something in us, and now, like he did with Jacob, he's starting to grant him success.

Success probably that he could not have handled before.

Maybe success that he would have tried to grab onto by his own means, by probably by more deceit, maybe by more cheating.

We don't know.

It's not what happened.

And and even on in all of this, in this story, and and I'm and we'll see more about Leah later.

Um, but even this, even God sees her, right?

The one with the weak eyes, as it says.

Not a great way to be described.

But what happens is it's actually through her line that she will have her one of her sons, she will have Judah.

And from Judah will come David.

We just read about that covenant, and then ultimately from David will come Jesus.

So it really is an amazing thing how God works and how God works for those of us that are in him.

He works out his story, his plan of redemption in ways that are much too wonderful for us to understand.

So be comforted.

If you if you're a Christian and you're and you're experiencing hard things, take comfort because God He is a father that loves you.

And he loves you too much to leave you alone.

Whether these hard things are in response to a sin, or whether they are just God's preparing you for something that you don't know what it is, but he's preparing you, then take comfort.

If you're not a Christian and and you're going through hard things, maybe maybe this is God trying to draw you to himself.

Maybe this is him also not letting you alone.

Maybe he's just trying to push, trying to prod you along to draw him closer to you.

It's when you're left alone to your sin.

It's when God's hand is not upon you at all, and you're allowed to wallow in your sin and thrive in the things that your flesh is desiring.

That's that's when we ought to worry.

That's that is God's wrath.

And what it says in Scripture is um Yeah, because he because if he's not shaping you in order that you bear fruit, Scripture's very clear about what happens to a tree that bears no fruit.

It says it's cut off and burned.

So enter into discipline joyfully and take comfort and know that God is doing a work in you that will bear the fruit of righteousness.

So I'm gonna go out at a limb and take a question.

We'll see what is there.

Okay.

Um can you offer practical wisdom on how to determine if the hard things that enter our lives are discipline for an act of sin versus evidence for the brokenness which is in the world?

Yeah.

Um, yeah, I didn't, I touched on it just a little bit.

But yeah, um I think that, like I said, we're not looking for a you know, for a for a karma or even like a even like a retribution.

I mean, God, God is gracious to forgive us when we repent of our sins.

Um, so it's not that God is going to um only forgive us after, you know, he's like made us pay.

That's not the way that God works.

What he does is he uses these things in our life.

So if if there is a manifest sin, then and there's something that's creating hardship.

Um think about connecting those dots.

Is this this thing that I've been engaging with, this thing that I've been doing, this way that I've been talking to my wife, this way, this uh maybe it's a selfishness, this way that I've been focused on just me, and it seems like all these other people around me are getting hurt.

Well, maybe try to figure out what's what.

And and maybe this this pain that is, you know, that is causing other people, or maybe if other people are stepping back from you, um, maybe you need to look and see is this because of something in me that God is asking me to change?

Versus um, yeah, what what he says here, the brokenness which is in the world, there is a lot of hardship in the world, there's a lot of brokenness in the world.

Uh, Jesus does not promise that life will be easy as Christians.

And so when we look at that and we say, I'm actually doing some of the right things.

I'm uh I'm sharing, uh I'm I'm living with integrity at work, or I'm not engaging with um some of the things that that my coworkers think is is right, and I'm standing up to that now.

I'm that's becoming difficult for me, or I'm losing friends for that.

Well, that's that's the other kind.

That's God saying, you need to persevere in your faith.

You need to continue to move forward because that that will strengthen us.

Like it uh like it said in James, it says that it produces steadfastness, right?

So that's actually that steadfastness, that's a it's almost like a digging in of saying, no, like I'm going to stand on what is true.

I'm going to stand on what scripture tells me.

And if that makes my life harder, then I will become stronger because he will strengthen me and he will honor, he will honor that obedience.

Um does that does that help, whoever asked?

I hope that helps.

Um talk more about it too, if you'd like.

I'm gonna go ahead and pray, and then uh and then we're gonna take communion.

God, thank you for um just providing a text that shows your faithfulness uh to one of your servants, one that um one that doesn't look that great in the beginning of his story.

Um but you are faithful and you bring him along and you do make a great nation from him.

Um that that ultimately your son will come from.

And um, God, I I pray that you would just give uh wisdom and discernment um to all of us as we navigate these really tough things about discerning what is it that you're doing in our lives.

Um what sin are you picking and poking at?

What are you preparing us for that you know will come in the future and we do not?

Please give us discernment.

Um and God, thank you for your faithfulness to your children.

Thank you for loving us enough to apply discipline in our lives.

We just ask that you would bless this week and and and prepare our hearts as we look forward to to Easter, to celebrating what you have done for us.

Because without that, none of this holds up.

You pray these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.

So we're gonna do communion here this morning.

If uh if you're a Christian, come to the table and and celebrate what it is that he has done for you.

And by doing this, that's what we're doing, is we're we're proclaiming the death and the resurrection of Jesus when we take communion.

So if you're not a Christian, um then please abstain, because that means that you don't believe that.

And um, and if this has sparked anything in you, then grab me, grab someone else, grab Zach or James, let's let's talk.

First Corinthians eleven, twenty-three through twenty-six.

For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night 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 he also took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant of my blood.

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

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