God Hears

Morning.

Our text is from Genesis twenty one, eight through twenty-one.

And the child grew and was weaned, and Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned.

But Sarah saw the son of Hagar, the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, laughing.

So she said to Abraham, Cast out this slave woman with her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac.

And the thing was very displeasing to Abraham on account of his son.

But God said to Abraham, Be not displeased because of the boy and because of your slave woman.

Whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for through Isaac shall your offspring be named, and I will make a nation of the son of the slave woman also, because he is your offspring.

So Abraham rose early in the morning and took bread and a skin of water and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, along with the child, and sent her away.

And she departed and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba.

When the water in the skin was gone, and she she put the child under one of the bushes.

Then she went and sat down opposite him, a good way off, about the distance of a bowshot.

For she said, Let me not look on the death of the child.

And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept.

And God heard the voice of the boy, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven, and said to her, What troubles you, Hagar?

Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is.

Up, lift up the boy, and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make him into a great nation.

Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water, and she went and filled the skin with water, and gave the boy a drink.

And God was with the boy, and he grew up.

He lived in the wilderness and became an expert with the bow.

He lived in the wilderness of Paran, and his mother took a wife for him from the land of Egypt.

This is the word of the Lord, you may be seated.

Welcome to church this morning.

As Zach said, my name is Kyle Boyd, and I'm an elder here at Redemption.

And I'm excited to be continuing in Genesis with you all today.

Before we do, have a couple quick announcements.

First, uh discipleship workshop on June 6th after church on Sunday.

We had an evangelism workshop a couple weeks ago, and it was just awesome.

So I highly recommend the discipleship workshop.

It'll be led by Carolyn Kellum.

And discipleship is simply just being intentionally with someone and serving them in their relationship with Jesus, intentionally helping them in their walk.

And our hope is that here at Redemption we will be growing a culture of discipleship, both in giving and receiving.

So I hope you can make it.

You can sign up in the app or talk to somebody in Red Lanyard and they'll help you figure it out.

And then the second announcement is James is hosting a book club reading Carl Truman's The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self.

And the first meeting of that will be on June 2nd.

And again, if you're interested, sign up in the app, talk to somebody with Red Lanyard.

We try to keep it simple.

Alright, so that's that's all the announcements I have.

So let's get started.

When James needed someone to preach this morning, and I saw that I was on the rescue of Hagar and Ishmael, I felt fairly confident.

This passage seems relatively straightforward.

Another story of drama within Abraham's family.

Sermon outline seems pretty simple.

Sarah again gets angry with Hagar and Ishmael, this time enough to throw them out of the family.

Abraham goes to God.

God, maybe a bit surprisingly, agrees with Sarah, but then God still looks out for Hagar and Ishmael, rescuing them at the last second.

A story of God straightening out the mess of Abraham and Sarah's life, providing rescue to Hagar and Ishmael.

Sermon done.

Now, all that is accurate, and we will sort of follow that outline, but there's more here.

There are a few times throughout the New Testament when Jesus or one of the New Testament authors interprets the Old Testament for us.

And one of these times is in the book of Galatians, where Paul references this exact story.

So now I have to preach on two passages: one in Galatians and one in Genesis.

On the surface, Paul's interpretation really seems to confuse things.

In his letter to the Galatians, Paul is writing to Jewish Christians about a controversy about what to do with new converts, specifically Gentiles, that is, non-Jewish Christians.

These Christians have become confused.

They believe that they must adopt all of the Jewish law to become a Christian.

And Paul is emphatic in rejecting this idea.

It's by grace and faith alone, not obedience to the law, that makes a Christian.

And he summarizes this whole argument by pointing to Isaac and Ishmael and our passage this morning.

So now I have to preach on the whole book of Galatians and our texts in Genesis this morning.

So I have about three hours, so good luck.

Let me read this relevant passage from Galatians, and then I'll pray and ask for help for us this morning.

Starting in Galatians 4, 22.

For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman.

But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise.

Now this may be interpreted allegorically.

These women are two covenants, one is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery, she is Hagar.

Now you brothers like Isaac are children of promise.

But just as at that as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so also it is now.

But what does the Scripture say?

Cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.

So, brothers, we are not children of the slave, but of the free woman.

Lord, thank you for this morning.

Thank you for your word.

Would you help us this morning to see wonderful and beautiful things in your word?

Would you open our hearts and our minds to receive what you have for us this morning?

Would you use my words to just bring life to what you have written?

Would your spirit be with us this morning to have us receive what it is that you have for us?

Your name we pray.

Amen.

Okay, so the outline of this morning, we're gonna start with sort of a recap of where we are in Genesis just to kind of get our bearings.

Then we're gonna examine this Galatians passage to see what Paul sees.

And then we'll dive into our Genesis story.

And we're gonna look at it sort of at face value and through Paul's, through the lens of Paul's interpretation.

Then I'll kind of attempt to bring to land the plane by bringing it all together.

Alright, so today's passage picks up a few years after last week's passage.

Just as a reminder of where we are in the book of Genesis, we've been following the life of Abraham and his family.

His family is important because Abraham has been promised from his family will come a people of God.

Abraham's story begins in Genesis chapter 12.

Genesis 12 · chapter mention

And at this time his name is Abram.

God promises to bless Abram and to make his family into a great nation and to take him to a special land.

We follow Abram and his wife Sarai as they navigate whether to trust God or to trust their own ideas, whether to align with God or to align with the godless kings and people who they interact with.

Abram fears for his life and try and lies to ingratiate himself with the kings of the land, demonstrating that he doesn't trust in God fully.

But God reinforces his plan for Abram, making a covenant with him and promising him a son.

In chapter 16, Sarai believes God is incapable of giving Sarai and Abram children in their old age.

So she suggests that Abram sleep with their slave Hagar.

The son that is born is Ishmael, but Ishmael is not the promised heir.

Sarai becomes furious that Hagar was able to have a son, and Hagar flees.

But again, God reminds them of his plan, giving Abram a sign of the covenant, a sign of belonging in God's family.

And the sign is circumcision.

And he gives Sarai and Abram new names, Sarah and Abraham.

He also encourages Hagar to return back to Sarah and Abraham.

At this point, Sarah and Abraham are old, seemingly too old to have children.

But God miraculously provides a son, Isaac, the promised son of Abraham.

So our passage this morning picks up on the story from last week, a few years later.

Not sure what you did to celebrate your weaning, but Abraham throws a party for Isaac's.

And this would have been fairly typical, actually.

Weaning probably happened around three years of age at this time, and unlike today, it was not unusual for children to die before their third birthday.

So the custom was typical that this event was caused for a feast.

And sometimes during this occasion, Sarah sees Ishmael laughing with or at Isaac.

She becomes enraged and demands that Hagar and Ishmael be cast out.

On the surface, this seems like a wild overreaction.

Verse 8 And the child grew and was weaned, and Abraham made a feast, a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned.

But Sarah saw the son of Hagar, the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, laughing.

So she said to Abraham, Cast out this slave woman with her son, for the son of this slave woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac.

Some translations translate this laughing as one of mocking or tormenting Isaac.

Ishmael would have been an older boy or a young teenager at this point.

And it's easy to see how he could be exhibiting jealousy of his miraculous baby brother.

He's much older than Isaac, but would probably be treated as inferior in every way.

So it's not surprising that he may be mocking Isaac.

Even if Ishmael was a terrible older brother, taking his anger out on Isaac and mocking and tormenting him, it's hard to imagine that Sarah's reaction is appropriate to Ishmael's actions.

It certainly doesn't seem to be at to be the actions of a woman who has been overwhelmed by the grace of God and then is extending a similar kindness to others.

But this is what Paul highlights in Galatians.

Cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.

So, brothers, we are not children of the slave, but of the free woman.

We see that the impetus to this whole story is not just an overreaction by an overprotective mother, but is actually the will of God to create two lines of people, two inheritances, one of the slave woman and one of the free woman.

There are those in the line of Isaac and those in the line of Ishmael.

Isaac, the product of a miracle of God, promised by God, entrusted in faith by Sarah and Abraham.

All the work is done by God.

Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac are free to celebrate God's goodness.

Ishmael is the product of Sarai and Abram's striving, of their seeing some amount of goodness in God's promises, but then attempting to gain this promise by their own trying and by their own efforts through a slave.

So Ishmael is representative of our own striving, of our own trying and failing to obey the law, or our own attempts at living rightly, in order to make God give us what we want or what He's promised us.

And Paul calls this slavery.

Genesis, or in Galatians 2, he says, Yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ, and not by works of the law.

Because by works of the law no one will be justified.

Do you see what Paul is saying?

Isaac was born through faith in God.

God did the work.

In order to also be brought into God's family, we must only have faith in God.

It's nothing that we can do ourselves.

In fact, if we try to do it ourselves, we end up like in the line of Ishmael.

Look at the trajectory.

In faith, we have eternal life.

In striving, we'll be cast out.

And we can see that in what becomes of Ishmael.

Paul is writing all of this in response to Jewish Christians who want to enforce all the Jewish law onto new Christians.

Paul is saying that it is not obedience or ethnicity or tradition that makes a Christian.

Jesus was the faithful Israelite and true King.

He fulfilled the law perfectly and dies on our behalf.

And now the blessing is extended to all.

Requiring following the law neglects what Jesus did for us on the cross.

We are no longer imprisoned by the law.

We're no longer limited to one ethnic family.

We are saved by faith alone.

And anything apart from faith alone in Jesus is a different gospel.

This is the thesis of Paul's letter to the Galatians.

Now, this may not seem to apply to us.

No one here today, as far as I know, is arguing that we must obey the Torah.

But look back at Galatians 2.

When you see the work, see the words works of the law, think of our own attempts at justifying ourselves in life.

Everyone is striving to find meaning and work in their life, worth in their life.

Everyone wants to live their lives the right way.

There are many competing views out there to tell you what that looks like.

There are many systems that give you a set of rules or values and then say, go, do your best.

Or some systems reject God or reject morals and say, just go find your own way.

Whether that's finding your worth in your career or your drug habit or being as good of a person as you can.

But Paul is saying that this striving to follow the rules or to break them only ends in us being enslaved into those set of rules.

Even the perfect set of rules, the law that God has given the Israelites.

As far as I know, though, Christianity is unique in saying that you can't.

You can't follow the rules.

You can't even come close.

But Jesus lived the life that we cannot.

And by putting our faith in him, he takes on all of our shortcomings, failure and sin.

And then he gives us his perfect righteousness.

This is the essence of the gospel.

Galatians 3, Paul writes, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, becoming a curse for us.

For it is written, Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree, so that in Christ Jesus the blessings of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.

Paul uses Isaac, the firstborn son, into the family of God, the symbol of the ethnic Israelite people, the first fully Jewish boy, to illustrate to these Jewish Christians that they're free from the Jewish law, that they must take hold of that freedom in order to remain in the family of Isaac.

But so now with that framing of Galatians in mind, let's return back to the Genesis passage.

Verse 11 And the thing was very displeasing to Abraham, on account of his son.

But God said to Abraham, Be not displeased because of the boy and because of your slave woman.

Whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for through Isaac shall your offspring be named.

And I will make a nation of the son of the slave woman also, because he is your offspring.

Abraham's wife is asking him to cast out his own son.

Sarah's unease with this whole family situation comes to a head here, leaving Abraham to make a choice between the demands of his wife and the care of his son.

We don't know how much insight Sarah really had into the will of God, into this allegorical nature that Paul talks about, of her status as the mother of the children of promise, and Hagar's status as the mother of the children of slavely.

But I think it's probable that there's still a good amount of self-interest and vengeance in Sarah's demands.

So what are we to make of this?

Sarah, the wife of the patriarch Abraham, the mother of the promised child of Isaac, behaving like this.

I think it's yet another illustration of God working, even through our sinful requests and demands.

Somehow God uses sinful men to accomplish his purposes.

But note too, this is a circumstance brought on by Abraham's doing as well.

Abraham is not an innocent bystander.

Sarah first made the suggestion for Abraham to sleep with Hagar, of course, but it was Abraham who went through with it.

Rather than trusting in God's provision, Abraham followed Sarah in trying to take hold of God's promise outside of the guards that God had provided.

And now he's facing the consequence of that sin.

And what is God's response to Abraham's dilemma?

Verse 12.

God said to Abraham, Be not displeased because of the boy, and because of your slave woman.

Whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for through Isaac shall your offspring be named.

And I will make a nation of the son of the slave woman also, because he is your offspring.

Again, on the surface, it seems surprising, even heartless of God.

Go ahead, listen to your wife, and abandon your son.

But God's plan was for Abraham and Sarah to bear a child, and for that child to be the beginning of God's people.

But Sarah and Abraham disregarded that plan, and the result is Ishmael.

So God is unraveling this mess that Abraham and Sarah have brought into their family life.

He's promising to sort it out for Abraham and Isa and Sarah, but he's also promising to sort it out for Hagar and Ishmael.

Because of Abraham's faith in God, he's still kind to Hagar and Ishmael, even in casting them out.

At the same time, God is using this mess to demonstrate for us a picture of reality, to show us that there are real consequences to not putting our faith in God.

Real consequences for not trusting in Him.

And if we live our lives in a pattern that demonstrates that we do not trust, that our hope is in our righteousness and not in Jesus', then we too will be cast out.

So Abraham obeys God's instruction.

Verse 14.

So Abraham rose early in the morning and took bread and a skin of water and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, along with the child, and sent her away.

And she departed and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba.

When the water in the skin was gone, she put the child under one of the bushes.

Then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off, about the distance of a bowshot, for she said, Let me not look on the death of the child.

And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept.

This is the pivotal moment in the story.

Will God come through on his promise to Abraham regarding Ishmael and Hagar?

We don't even know if Hagar knew anything of Abraham's Abraham's and God's conversation.

To Hagar, this doesn't feel like God is looking out for her and her son.

From her perspective, this is just a final abandonment of God.

Her life has been a roller coaster.

She's a slave, a slave far away from her home country, Egypt, in a foreign land.

She's been living with the people of God and witnessed to miraculous interventions by God, even in her own life.

But her life has not been easy.

And now she's sent out into the wilderness.

Abandoned by Abraham and is awaiting her death and the death of her boy.

This doesn't look like God is working.

They're alone in the desert.

Their hope is gone.

Their water is gone.

This is a mother who is laying down her son to die, and then die herself.

But do you know what Ishmael's name means?

In chapter 16, the angel of the Lord says to Hagar, You shall name him Ishmael, for the Lord has heard of your misery.

Ishmael's name means God listens or God hears.

Verse 17.

And God heard the voice of the boy, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, What troubles you, Hagar?

Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is.

Up, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make him into a great nation.

Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water, and she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink.

Can you imagine the relief in that moment?

The relief of bring being brought from death to life, from total despair to hope, to have their most pressing needs met, and to be cared for and upheld by God Himself.

God hears the cries of Ishmael and Hagar.

God speaks to Hagar by name.

Despite the sins of Abraham and Sarah, despite the transgressions of Hagar and Ishmael, God hears.

This is our God.

He hears and he saves.

God does not just hear the pleas of the powerful or the people who have it all together or who have the right approach to life.

God hears the lowly, the humble, the outcast, the slave, the poor, the immigrant, the refugee.

Our God hears and our God saves.

And this is the story of a forgotten woman.

She's not the mother of the promised line of Abraham.

She's not part of the family of God.

She has no power, no status, she's the wrong lineage.

In fact, have you noticed throughout this story, she's referred to primarily as the slave woman.

She barely even has a name.

But God addresses her by name.

The same God who spoke the universe into existence and sustains it by his word knows the name of this Egyptian slave woman.

This is a theme throughout the Bible.

God requires of the Israelites that they welcome the stranger, that they're hospitable to the sojourner, that they care for the oppressed and the poor.

And then Jesus extends this even further.

We are to pray for our enemies.

We are to bless them.

We are to serve everyone, even those who persecute us.

The way that God treats Hagar and Ishmael in this moment is a pattern of God's care for humanity.

I've been thinking about this a lot over the past couple of weeks.

And do you see how this sort of flattens humanity?

No group has the corner on God's ear.

There's no people or person who you can claim superiority to.

Right now, it seems we're in a moment of particular division, of tribalism.

Lines are being drawn throughout all of life.

And it seems that we're being encouraged to find the people who are in our group to lift up our allies and repudiate our enemies, whether that's your political views, your sexual ethic, your race.

But this passage is pointing out specifically that God does not draw those same lines.

There's Abraham and Sarah, the man of God, promised to be the father of God's people.

And there's the Egyptian slave and her boy.

And God hears both.

So I want you to ask yourself seriously this morning, what kind of implications this has on your life?

What kind of lines have you drawn?

How do you treat the people that are on the other side of those lines?

Are there people who you look down upon because of their status in life or their political views, maybe their view of masks, or their culture, their ethnicity, or even their history of sin?

How does it change things to think that God may be listening to their cries just as closely as he listens to yours?

And what would it mean if you prayed for that person or that group of people and not prayed that they would change to your way of thinking, but just prayed for their well-being.

Now, I'm not saying that we disregard thinking about the issues.

There are certainly things that we should care about.

Especially as Christians, we should think deeply and care deeply about truth, justice, mercy, the poor and the oppressed.

And there are certain places in politics and life and ethics that we can and should disagree, even as Christians and with other Christians.

I'm also not saying that the solution to divides among class, race, or gender or status is to just say that we're all humans and to just pretend that these divisions don't exist.

Recognizing differences and the unique ways that God has created us is actually a good thing.

But the call of the Bible is to primarily view others as fellow image bearers of God.

Verse 20.

And God was with the boy, and he grew up.

He lived in the wilderness and became an expert with the bow.

He lived in the wilderness of Paran, and his mother took a wife for him from the land of Egypt.

We have seen clearly in Galatians that Ishmael is not within the fold of God's family.

But even without Paul's help, I think we can see that God's hearing and saving of Hagar and Ishmael is not necessarily one of eternal status, but of temporary physical salvation.

Although it says God was with the boy, it's referencing God's physical protection and not necessarily his spiritual protection or salvation.

Ishmael and Hagar are no longer part of God, or part of God's family or Abraham's family, where God's covenant is.

Even though Ishmael was circumcised, he's no longer included in this covenant.

He lives in the wilderness, which is sort of a biblical shorthand for out of God's presence.

When Adam and Eve were sent out of the garden, they were sent into the wilderness.

After Cain killed his brother, he was sent out into the wilderness.

The wilderness is where Ishmael dwells and settles.

And he takes a wife from the land of Egypt.

He's embracing the culture and the people of his mother, rather than that of God's people, his father Abraham.

And God never addresses Ishmael by name.

He speaks directly to Hagar, but not to Ishmael.

Based on this, we can conclude that even though Hagar and Ishmael received the kindness of God, they experience a miraculous salvation and are even made into a great nation.

We can surmise that Ishmael did not ultimately put his hope in God.

And so we can see that God hears and perseveres, not perseveres, preserves, at least for a time.

Even those who are outside of his family.

This is a glimpse into the reality of our spiritual life.

God listens and hears the cries of all people.

He is kind even to those who do not put their trust in him.

And for those who do not put their trust in him, ultimately, they are cast out and embrace the wilderness of their own sin.

The Bible tells us that we are like Ishmael, dying in the desert, born out of an attempt to earn a right standing before God.

We are in the wilderness searching for water.

In fact, the Bible tells us that we are already dead, that we have no hope to save ourselves.

All of our efforts at finding ultimate meaning or joy or satisfaction end up leaving us feeling unsatiated.

Our thirst cannot be quenched.

Like a woman wandering the desert, we put our hope in an oasis on the horizon.

Maybe we put our hope in our career.

We work hard, we build up the business, we're on our way up the corporate ladder, but then you get laid off.

The oasis turns out to be dry.

Or maybe you do achieve the promotion, but you're left feeling just as unsatisfied as you were before.

The oasis was just a mirage.

This is the human condition.

Dead in our sin.

But God hears.

And he does not just listen.

Out of his great love, he acts.

And he does not just save us from afar, but he sent Jesus, God's own Son, to enter into our wilderness.

Jesus became an exile and takes our curse upon himself, literally cast out for us and nailed to a cross to bear our shame.

Through Jesus, God opens our eyes to see that there is a well.

A well that is full of water that never runs dry.

Jesus says, Whoever drinks the water I give him, give them will never thirst.

Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

God hears humanity's cries and he sent Jesus to save us.

We no longer have to strive to earn our worth or value.

Jesus lived the perfect life and died on our behalf.

He takes our sin upon him and then he gives us his perfect standing before God.

We no longer have to earn the promotion or find the one or get the zeros in the bank account.

We don't even have to live perfectly righteous.

Our ultimate thirst has been quenched.

And God will take your desert wilderness and restore it back to the Garden of Eden.

All the wasteland experiences of our life, everything that is barren, dead, and dry, God will one day redeem and make fruitful.

If you're not a Christian, you no longer have to live in the slavery of striving and striving.

It's exhausting.

All you must do is acknowledge that you need rescue, that God alone can save you, and that he has done so by sacrificing his son Jesus.

He will hear you.

If you're a Christian, I invite you this morning to be reminded of your standing before God.

That you are an heir of God and a member of his family, but not because of anything that you have done, but because of Jesus.

So let me take a question, if there is one, and then we'll pray and take communion.

Man, this is the hardest part of the whole morning.

Uh that's a really good question.

So um, yeah, so I think the question is getting at um there are there are parts of this story and lots of other stories throughout the Bible that clearly don't measure up to the some of the standards that we have today.

Um but I but I think um in the Bible, there's also even today standards that don't measure up to the standards of people in ancient times either.

And so um the story of sort of these heroes of the faith are not that they are amazing people who are really great at following God.

The the story of the Bible is actually God is really great, and he saves people who are not really great.

So that's kind of the first part of the question.

The second part I think is sort of how do we explain slavery in the Bible?

Uh, I think is sort of what it's getting at.

Or maybe other views that seem sort of outmoded.

Um and uh that's maybe a question that takes a lot of explaining that I don't necessarily have time for, but um I think we can see even here that the trajectory of God, of God's story throughout the Bible, is one of freedom.

That even though slavery um exists and even is sort of condoned, that there's this trajectory of God continually freeing people, um, God freeing the Israelites from uh the Egyptians in the story of Exodus, um, Paul talking about um slavery in the New Testament.

There's a there's just a trajectory of freedom.

So um I don't know if that's a good good answer to that question, but if you have if you'd want to talk to anybody about that more, I'd be happy to, or email James.

I'm sure he could he could help.

Uh so let me let me pray and then we'll take communion.

Lord, um, thank you for your word this morning.

Thank you that you hear, that you hear us, that you look on us sinners.

And you did chose not to totally abandon us, but that you sent Jesus to rescue us.

Would you help us this morning to just see to see that reality, to see that we we cannot earn our way to you, but that you have provided a way for us to have life with you.

Would you help us to trust you, Jesus?

In your name we pray.

Amen.

Now let's take the Lord's Supper together.

The bread is a reminder of Jesus' body broken on our behalf.

The wine or juice, a symbol of his blood spilled for us.

So come down the center aisle, take communion from whichever table is open, and then go out the side aisles.

Then if you have kids, go get them so that we can worship as a family together.

If you're not a Christian or you aren't sure, don't take communion.

There's absolutely no shame in this, but as a symbol of Christ's forgiveness, the Bible says that it's dangerous to take communion without being assured of your relationship with Him.

But if you are in Christ, we invite you to the Lord's table.

God hears the cry of our sin, and he saves us through the sacrifice of Jesus.

Before you take the bread and the wine, examine yourself, confess your sin and repent, and be reminded of Jesus' saving grace.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

He who calls you as faithful, he will surely do it.