take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ." Now, if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one's work will become manifest, for the day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire. Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is holy and you are that temple. Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool so that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is folly with God." This is the word of the Lord. And our gospel reading is from the 19th chapter of Luke, verses 11 through 27. As they heard these things, Jesus proceeded to tell a parable because he was near to Jerusalem and because they supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately. He said, therefore, a nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and then return. Calling 10 of his servants, he gave them 10 minas and said to them, engage in business until I come. But his citizens hated him. and sent a delegation after him saying, we don't want this man to reign over us. When he returned, having received the kingdom, he ordered these servants to whom he had given the money to be called to him so that he might know what they had gained by doing business. The first came before him saying, Lord, your Mina has made 10 Minas more. And he said to him, well done, good servant, because you have been faithful in a very little, you shall have authority over 10 cities. And the second came, saying, Lord, your mina has made five minas. And he said to him, and you are to be over five cities. Then another came, saying, Lord, here is your mina, which I kept laid away in a handkerchief, for I was afraid of you, because you are a severe man. You take what you did not deposit, and you reap what you did not sow. He said to him, I will condemn you with your own words, you wicked servant. You knew that I was a severe man, taking what I did not deposit and reaping what I did not sow. Why then did you not put my money in the bank? And at my coming, I might have collected it with interest. And he said to those who stood by, take the mina from him and give it to the one who has the 10. And they said to him, Lord, he has 10 minas. I tell you that to everyone who has, more will be given. but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. As for these enemies of mine who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slaughter them before me." The gospel of our Lord. Pray with me. Guide us, O God, by your word and spirit, so that in your light we may see light, in your truth find wisdom, and in your will discover peace. Add your blessing to the reading and the hearing and the preaching of your word, and grant us all the grace to trust and obey you and all God's people said. Amen. All right kids, last week I gave you a mini homework assignment to thank your parents for bringing you to Jesus, for having you baptized, and for bringing you to a church that lets you eat with Jesus every Sunday. We talked a little bit about how if you really understand how amazing Jesus is, and what a privilege it is to be a Christian, well then the only faithful response to God and your parents should be gratitude. This week, I'm going to give you another assignment as a follow-up to that one. Now that you've thought about and thanked your parents for the amazing gift you've been given, I want you to go home this week and I want you to obey your parents. And since you're obeying them out of love and gratitude, I want you to joyfully obey them. And if you do, then just like the sucker you got last week for doing what you were told, you will get more rewards, but not from me. You'll have to be patient. You'll have to trust God for them, but these rewards are better than a million suckers. If you obey your parents, the rewards you get are knowing that your obedience pleases Jesus and that your life will go better for you if you do obey them than if you don't. Jesus promised. I know a lot of the books parents read say not to reward children for obedience because it teaches them something called works righteousness, which means basically that they think rewarding children teaches children that parents only love their kids because they obey. But I hope you know by now that no amount of good behavior is what makes your parents love you any more than your good behavior is what makes God love you. The last few weeks we've tried to make it very clear that God's love for his children and his children's children is all of grace and nothing anyone can do can earn that love. And at the very same time, God's gifts of grace are grace. And faithful children will respond to that grace with a grateful obedience. Not because they're trying to earn their father's love, but because they know they have it. Big kids, mature kids, kids who love God and their parents want to obey. You want to do what your parents ask because you love God and want to please Him and therefore your parents. You see how that works? The more you grow, the more mature you get, the more you're going to want to go out of your way to serve God by serving others. And as you grow in serving others and serving God, God will reward your faithfulness by giving you more people to love and serve. And that will make you happy because you know it makes God happy. That's your reward. Now, I have to warn you, the opposite is also true, though. If you only obey your mom and dad because you don't want to get in trouble, if you whine and complain when they ask you to do something, and if you only do the bare minimum of what's being asked of you, and then get mad when you don't get what you think you deserve, well, you've got some serious growing up to do. Only little babies whine and cry when they don't get their way. And if you keep living your life like a little baby, well then you're never gonna get the freedoms and privileges that you say you want, not from your parents and not from God. And just like those who grow in love and service get more good things, you'll grow in selfishness and bitterness. And God will take away even the good things you already have. And you won't be able to blame anyone else but yourself because God has already given you everything you could ever need to be faithful. You see, what we've been seeing the last couple of weeks is true. God only saves infants, but he doesn't want infants running everything. In fact, one of the qualifications for church office is that a man isn't an infant in the faith. They have to grow up first, whether actual babies or Grownups, all babies, have to learn to be faithful with a little, and then little by little, God will give them more and more. In our gospel lesson, we heard Jesus tell his disciples a parable to that end. Now, at first, the parable might seem pretty basic in that it teaches everyone to be faithful with what they've been given, and God will give them more. And that's true as far as it goes. But if we remember our three basic characters in Jesus's parables, and then the setting in which the story is told, well, there's much more going on than meets the eye, even if the basic application is similar. Now in this parable there are more than three characters, but there are three kinds of characters. A nobleman, faithful slaves, and an unfaithful slave, and people who don't want the nobleman to be their king. Now obviously the guy at the top, the nobleman, is Jesus. The faithful slaves or servants are the disciples who respond faithfully to Jesus, and the unfaithful ones are the unrepentant people who reject Jesus and his lordship. Simple enough. If you've been with us for any amount of time, then the message becomes relatively clear, but there are specifics we can nail down that make the parable and the characters come more alive. Now first, we have to remember that a parable is not just a generic story with universal moral principles for every person in every age, at least not fundamentally. Parables are not fables, and Jesus is not Aesop. In the Bible, parables are a prophetic way of telling a story that are typically reserved for cryptically revealing how God is planning to save the faithful and judge the rebellious in a certain age. For example, God tells Ezekiel to speak in parables to the rebellious house of Israel about the judgments God is going to bring upon them. And God reminds the prophet Hosea that it was him who spoke to the prophets and through the prophets gave parables to the people. The meaning of the parables should be clear. But because of people's hard hearts and willful blindness, they refuse to understand the story. earlier in Luke when explaining why he speaks in parables, Jesus said, to you, speaking to his disciples, it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God, but for others, they are in parables, so that seeing, they may not see, and hearing, they may not understand. Now, in the Gospel of Matthew, it's clear that there are those in Israel who are faithful and those in Israel who are unfaithful. And Jesus will bless and curse accordingly. But when Luke writes his gospel 20 or so years later, which we've discussed almost weekly as being for Gentile God-fearers, The basic thrust of the parables in Luke is how Jesus came to save sinners, Jew and Gentile alike, and that the kingdom is going to be taken away from the Jews and given to the Gentiles. the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10, the greedy brother in Luke 12, the barren fig tree in Luke 13, the wedding feast filled with outsiders, Luke 14, the lost coin and prodigal son, Luke 15, the shrewd manager in Luke 16, and the Pharisee and the tax collector in Luke 18. all point to how the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost outsiders, the untouchables and incapables, and how he was going to judge Israel and take away their inheritance because of their refusal to trust and obey the rightful king. In the days leading up to our story this morning, Jesus has only intensified that message saying things like the kingdom of God was already in their midst and the son of man is going to be revealed and the son of man is going to bring justice speedily and everything that was written about the son of man by the prophets was about to be accomplished. And so it's easy to see why the disciples suppose the kingdom of God was going to appear immediately. Understandably, they have the dreams of our Old Testament lesson in Daniel 7 ringing in their ears and dancing in their heads. I saw in the night visions and behold with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man and he came to the ancient of days and was presented before him and to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom so that all people's nations and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away and his kingdom one that shall never be destroyed. So in verse 11 of Luke 19, after all of Jesus' parables and statements about the kingdom of God coming in that generation, Luke tells us that the reason Jesus tells this prophetic parable is because he was near Jerusalem and his disciples supposed or thought that the kingdom was going to appear immediately. Therefore, to prepare them, Jesus pulls on that same Daniel 7 thread, but provides more information to clear up their misconceptions. Like the son of man, a nobleman went into a far country to receive a kingdom and then return. implying there is going to be a delay between when the soon-to-be king goes away and when he returns as king to judge and rule over the nations. So before the nobleman leaves, he calls 10 of his slaves and gives them a small business loan of sorts, one mina each, which is about three months wages. He tells them to take what he's given them and to engage in business until he returns. Jesus explains that the nobleman's own citizens hate him and will send a delegation after him declaring, we don't want this man to reign over us. Apparently, their coup will prove unsuccessful because the nobleman does, in fact, receive his kingdom. And upon the king's return, he calls the slaves back to him to see what they had gained by doing business. The first slave comes before the king and says, Lord, your mina has made 10 more. To which the king responds, well done. Because you have been faithful with a very little, you are going to receive authority over 10 cities. The second comes before the king and says, Lord, your Mina has made five Minas. To which the king responds, well then you are over five cities. And then there's the third slave. This slave comes before the king, acknowledges and calls him lord, gives him his mina with no return, and then explains that he didn't obey his lord's commands because he was afraid. His excuse for disobedience is that his lord is an austere or strict or severe man, and he's the kind of lord that takes what he doesn't deposit and reaps what he doesn't sow. And so of course the servant can't be blamed for defying the master. It's really the master's fault because he's so scary. If he were only nicer and more generous, well then maybe then the man would have obeyed. Well, the king responds to the absurdity of such accusations. The guy said he didn't obey because he was afraid of his master, and his master is a strict man. And the master says, well, then that's ridiculous. If the servant knew the Lord was strict, well, then all the more reason for him to obey. If the guy was afraid to make a mistake and lose the gift, well then he should have at least put the Lord's money to work so that his master's mina would have at least earned some interest. The Lord tells his court to take the mina from the unfaithful man and give it to the one who had 10. And while they're at it, they are to bring the citizens who did not want him to rule over them and then slaughter them all right before his face. Now again, the principle of God giving people gifts and expecting them to use them faithfully is obvious in the background. And for people to say God is harsh and ungracious and strict is actually more reason for them to submit to him than to reject him. But for the immediate hearers, the parallels between this parable and what happened in their relatively recent history would have added far more color to the warning. You see in about 4 B.C., right after Jesus is born, a wicked, harsh ruler, Herod the Great, died in Jericho, where this very dinner Jesus is at with his disciples is taking place. Upon Herod's death, his son, Archelaus, another ruler so harsh that Joseph chose to settle in Galilee and raise Jesus there rather than live under his rule, was supposed to take over as king. Well, wouldn't you know it, but there is a large and loud cohort of Jewish leaders who didn't want him to rule over them. Josephus records that this soon to be king clothed himself in white and ascended to a golden throne just before Passover. Like a good politician, Archelaus promised to lower taxes. And if the people would support him, he would make them a deal. He would remove the current high priest and he would give them someone more godly. Apparently that wasn't good enough. And so the group marched down to the temple and had a very loud prayer vigil in the temple After a few hours of their wailing it gets on Archelaus his skin And so he sent a band of soldiers to calm everyone down They weren't having it the crowd stones the soldiers and then goes right back to praying and offering sacrifices and Once the word of the little rebellion got back to Archelaus, a little after midnight, he sent his entire army to the city temple, had 3,000 of the dissidents slaughtered, and then sent heralds around the city to announce that Passover is canceled this year. Sounds like a governor we've had at one point or another. Archelaus then immediately goes to Rome to try to receive his father's kingdom. But instead of receiving the title of king, Caesar Augustus gives him a lesser title and permits him to rule over part of his father's kingdom, the three regions of Samaria, Judea, and Idumea, which he brutally did for about nine years. And so when Jesus tells this story with these details, it's not something he's just pulling out of thin air. His disciples are hearing that the Son of Man is going to be like Archelaus. And in their mind, that's just fine because that means he will destroy his and their enemies. Now he's not going to usher in his rule immediately like they suppose and like the people who are celebrating him at the triumphal entry right after this lesson seem to think. Instead the son of man is going to give his subjects gifts to begin expanding his kingdom while he goes away to receive his rightful throne, and when he comes back, then he's going to hold everyone accountable for how they've responded to his commands. If they are faithful with their gift and the commission they've received, well then the king will increase their rule in ways that are nearly unimaginable compared to the work that they've done. But if they are faithless, If they're disobedient, if they turn against the king and his delegates, well then, when he comes, the Son of Man will slaughter them. Now, I know that's not a warm, fuzzy picture of the Lamb of God that we're used to having Jesus reduced to. But good kings reward loyal subjects and punish evildoers. And Jesus is a good king. His hearers could either recognize how amiable and loving and infinitely gracious he is, and therefore loyally serve him with the gifts he's provided and receive rewards unimaginable, or they can ignore the gift, believe him to be merely austere and severe and reject him, But the offer of the prophetic parable stands, and Jesus always lives up to his promises. Like we'll be reminded of in our communion homily, the words of Jesus's parables actually play out in history. After his death and resurrection, Jesus proclaimed that he had, in fact, received all authority in heaven and on earth. And he charged his disciples to therefore go and do business, make disciples, baptize the nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teach them to obey everything that I taught you. At Pentecost, he gifted them the Holy Spirit and they put that gift to work. preaching about their Lord, how he had in fact gone away to receive his kingship, and how he was going to come again to judge Jerusalem if she refused to reject her king. In Acts 2, Peter heralds the gospel message. This Jesus God raised up, and of that we are all witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this gift that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. For David did not ascend to the heavens, but he himself says, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. Let all the house of Israel know, therefore for certain, that God has made him, both Lord and Christ, this Jesus, whom you crucified. Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, well then brothers, what shall we do? I've mentioned this before, but that question from the Jews, what shall we do? wasn't simply a question about how to get their souls saved into heaven when they died. If Jesus was in fact the nobleman, the Christ of God, and they had in fact killed him, and he was in fact going to put his enemies under his feet soon, well then they wanted to know what they could do to avoid his wrath. So Peter tells them how to be saved from the king by the king. Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are afar off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself. And Luke tells us with many other words, Peter bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, save yourselves from this crooked generation. So those who received his word were baptized. And there were added that day about 3,000 souls. Not sure if you caught it, but the same number of souls that the ruthless Archelaus had killed in one day for rejecting his kingship, Jesus saved at Pentecost. Now, the Son of Man did return and have the citizens of Jerusalem, who rejected his kingship and made war against his subjects, slaughtered in AD 70. But those just desserts were not without warrant. The wicked evildoers had been warned and given decades to repent, but rather than repent and be saved by the faithful preaching of the good news, they chose to reject the gift and turn against the giver. Fast forward a couple of hundred years, and just like the slaves in Jesus's parable, were given to rule over 10 and five cities because they were faithful with little? Well, so too did the gospel spread and it eventually led to the church literally appointing bishops in each of the cities in the regions that were called the Decapolis and the Pentapolis. The 10 cities and the five cities. And such has been the history of the church. The king's slaves were faithful, even in the face of death, to preach the good news that Christ had come, that Christ had died, that Christ had risen, that Christ was reigning, and that Christ would judge the living and the dead according to their works. And so, the king gave his church almost the entire western hemisphere. Now, as the king's slaves have become less faithful, both morally and theologically, they have had their right to rule on his behalf reduced. The gospel message that Jesus is the kind of Lord who saves by grace alone and who expects complete devotion from his slaves has been diluted into an anemic, quasi-spiritual message that has nothing to do with real life. get your souls saved by believing that Jesus died for you is the extent of the so-called gospel message. So it's no surprise that's the extent of the gospel reign. Jesus is supposedly Lord of your heart, but that world out there belongs to the devil. That's not the good news in the Bible. The gospel, good news is that Jesus Christ is the King of Jubilee who objectively rules and reigns over the entire world. Jesus is just as much King over every person in the United States as Donald Trump will be their president on January 6th. There is no sacred-secular divide. There is no separation of church and state. There is no divorcing, accepting Jesus into your heart from obeying his commands in your life. And there is no cosmos where unbelievers do not owe Jesus their full allegiance. God has already highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow. in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Until the slaves of Christ return to faithfully preaching that gospel, they will not get to rule on behalf of Jesus. As long as they tell the world that submitting to Jesus is optional and he really just cares about your ideas and not your submissive allegiance, then they shouldn't be surprised when people don't take that option and just go on about living their lives. If God doesn't judge anyone according to their works, why work for anything? If the gospel is, it doesn't matter if you're unfaithful with little, God will give you everything. Well then of course the church is going to look more like a nanny state filled with infants and less like a kingdom of priests who are ruling the world. I'm convinced that's one reason this tiny little church in Oregon City, Oregon has had such a disproportionately large impact on bits and pieces of the world is because this is the gospel you all have been hearing for over 40 years. If we got a letter from Jesus like the churches in Revelation, I think this would be in the commendation section. I'm convinced that's one of the reasons the CREC is punching above our weight class when it comes to kingdom work. Beloved, you're in a place where you know everything in heaven and on earth and under the earth already belongs to the Lord Jesus, and you are called to respond accordingly. You know he's Lord of time, and so you strive to be faithful with his time. First of all, on the Lord's day, heeding his call to worship him according to his word, and then also striving to be faithful with every minute of every day thereafter, because their minutes are his. You know Jesus is Lord of your pocketbooks, and so you refuse to steal from him, but rather give him what he commands. You know Jesus is Lord over your homes and so you take the job he's given you as husbands and fathers and mothers and wives more seriously than anyone I know. You know that Jesus is Lord of your children and he wants to eat with them. And so we baptize and commune them. And this little church has been so passionate about Jesus's love for children. We've sought to help brothers and sisters in Poland and Ukraine and Russia and Bulgaria and the Philippines and Beaverton, Oregon share God's gifts with his children. You know Jesus is Lord and not Caesar. So you kept pushing back and got homeschooling legalized and kept worshiping during COVID while still acting honorably toward the emperor. Because you believe Jesus is Lord and loves what is good and right and beautiful. You started and are running arguably the best Christian school in the area. Our little church has men serving on mission boards and seminaries and church planting networks and several non-profits, and if it's the Lord's will, we're just getting started. If the Western world can be transformed in 400 years by faithful gospel preaching, why can't it happen again? Others may sit on the sidelines and criticize us for taking the gospel too seriously while their influence for Christ fades. But you're just going to keep worshiping. You're going to keep working. You're going to keep advancing the gracious reign of King Jesus. First in, last out, singing and laughing loudest. Being faithful with little, our Lord is pleased to keep graciously giving us good things to do on his behalf in his world. If you're new to our church or this way of thinking, God's blessings aren't magic. He's not a genie. He's not like the federal government who subsidizes laziness and randomly plays out lotteries. He has built his world to function on the principle, the one who is faithful with little will be given much. And that starts in the way that we think in every emotion that we feel and every breath that we take. If we start with faithfulness there, well then we can hope God will give us more. So let's always remember, let's always hold dear the truths that we've confessed the last couple of weeks. Salvation is all of grace and grace alone. And as recipients of grace, let's do everything in our power to extend that grace into every nook and cranny of our own hearts and into every dark corner of whatever little piece of the world the Lord sees fit to give us. For his glory and the life of the world. Amen. Let's pray. Our Father, we have heard wonderful things out of your word. We praise you for revealing Christ by promise and shadow in the Old Testament and for revealing him as the fulfillment of all these things in the new. Give us your spirit so that we might understand these words and the fullness of your truth as you have revealed it to us in the person and work of Jesus who with you and the Holy Spirit be all honor and glory both now and forever. Amen. from a little story sandwiched between the sermon from last week and this morning because I could not fit it in. The familiar story of another one of God's children, Zacchaeus, the wee little man. Hear God's word. Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and was rich. And he was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd, he could not because he was small in stature. So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for Jesus was about to pass that way. When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, Zacchaeus, hurry and come down for I must stay at your house today. So he hurried and came down and received him joyfully. And when they saw it, they all grumbled. Jesus has gone to be the guest of a man who is a sinner. Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I've defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold. Jesus said to him, today salvation has come to this house since he also is a son of Abraham, the word of the Lord. It's still new. In the sermon, we discussed how Jesus's parables weren't just timeless, contextless stories, but they were prophetic in nature, revealing truth to the faithful and hiding it from the rebellious. We also saw how it's often the case that Jesus's parables get fulfilled in real time, often in the lifetime of the people who got to hear them. If you can think back all the way to a few weeks ago, we heard the parable of a Pharisee and a tax collector praying in the temple during the confession of sin portion of the Lord's service. There we saw how the hypocritical Pharisee was not justified because he trusted in his own false righteousness, and the tax collector was because he trusted and hoped in God's grace and mercy to cover all his sins. We touched on this very briefly last week, but right after Jesus told that parable, it was fulfilled. Right after Jesus blessed the infants of believers, a rich ruler, which in Luke always refers to a religious ruler, came to Jesus and asked what he must do to inherit eternal life. Now, people like to point out that this man was seeking a kind of salvation by works, asking what he must do to earn an inheritance. But that's not how the story goes. This man doesn't go home justified, not just because he was rich and loved his riches, but because he doesn't trust and obey Jesus. The guy comes and asks Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life, which is basically like saying, what must I do to be a part of this kingdom you keep talking about? Jesus responds, obey God. Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, don't bear false witness, and honor your father and mother. Like in the parable of the Pharisee, the man claimed to have obeyed God's law his whole life, to which Jesus basically responds, well, okay, fine, but there is one thing you still lack, your covetous. So repent of your covetousness, Sell everything you have, give it to the poor, come follow me, and you will have riches in heaven. Now we know the story. This made the rich man sad because he was extremely rich. And Jesus points out that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. And so, just like in the parable, The rich ruler goes back to his house not justified. After explaining to his disciples what was going to happen to him when they went to Jerusalem, something they were too blind to see, Jesus saves and heals a blind beggar, and then the second part of the parable gets fulfilled. As Jesus gets into Jericho, he meets not a self-righteous religious ruler this time, but a chief tax collector named Zacchaeus. We are told that like the other man, this tax collector was also very rich. But his response to Jesus was the complete opposite of the supposedly religious man, proving that it was possible for a tax collector's righteousness to surpass that of a Pharisee, Zacchaeus tells Jesus that unlike the rich ruler, he not only tithes, but he gives half of his goods to the poor, and if he finds out that he's defrauded anyone, even by accident, he pays double what God's law requires. Instead of paying back double, he restores what was lost fourfold. So as it turns out, the tax collector is doing the very thing Jesus tells the rich ruler to do. And so unlike the hypocritical religious man who went home unjustified, Jesus vindicates or justifies Zacchaeus, the faithful tax collector who by his faith and works prove him and not the Pharisee to be a true son of Abraham. Scene. Parable complete. Rich religious ruler who claims to obey God but doesn't trust and obey Jesus goes back to his house unjustified. Rich tax collector who does trust and obey God proves it by his trusting and obeying Jesus. And it's only the latter man who goes to his house with Jesus justified. So you see, while it is more difficult for a camel to enter through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter heaven, it's not impossible, obviously. If you love and trust and obey anything or anyone more than Jesus, salvation is impossible, which for rich people is really hard. But if you love and trust and obey Jesus above all, well then God can and does thread the needle. Beloved, it all comes down to what you do with Jesus. Do you hoard the gifts he's given you for yourself? Or do you receive his gifts with joy and then get to work sharing those gifts with others? Do you see everyone and everything in your life as a gift to be stewarded well so you strive to be faithful in thought, word, and deed in every area of your life? Or do you take God's gifts for granted and grumble and complain and make excuses for your disobedience when life isn't going your way because your master isn't good? The Lord Jesus has given us this day to remind us of these truths, and he's given us this table as a way of forming and shaping us into kingdom people. When Christ gives you this little piece of bread, receive it with gratitude, and then pass that piece to your brother or sister so they can see God's grace through you. When he gives you a little piece of wine to make, nope, a little bit of wine to make glad your heart, receive that gift of grace and then reflect that joy in your life, even when you face trials of many kinds. Now, I know it seems like a little thing, but if you're not being faithful with these little things, why do you think God would give you more? As Christ feeds you and nourishes you with his spiritual gifts, receive them and put them to work. Receive life and multiply it. Receive joy and offer it to others who will wonder where on earth you get the strength to be so weak. and then invite them to church so they can hear the good news that Jesus Christ is Lord and receive his gifts of grace too. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the same night that he was betrayed, took bread. Let us pray. We do not presume to come to your table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in your many and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to be slaves who gather up crumbs under your table, but you are the same Lord whose character is to have mercy. Thank you, gracious Lord, that our sinful bodies are made clean by Christ's body and our souls washed through his most precious blood so that we may evermore dwell in him and he in us. Amen. When he had given thanks, he broke it and said, take, eat. This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. These are the gifts of God for the people of God.