Alright, I just want to reiterate, my wife and I were driving home last Sunday night, last Vesper I guess you could say, and we were just commenting on how sweet a time it was, our time of prayer, and I thank you for that. It means a lot to us that you see this means of grace as a priority. It says a lot about your priorities in your life. But I think that the more that that attitude can spread in our church, the more that we will grow as a church. And I'm not even particularly thinking about numbers, although that may come. I'm less interested in numbers than I am with depth and depth comes as we mine out the means of grace. So so thank you for that. I want to talk this evening about the Lord's Supper. So if you could take your Bibles and you could prepare yourself by turning in your catechisms to questions 103 to 105, and then you can turn to 1 Corinthians 10 and 11. We'll be spending most of our time in those two chapters. I try to read to my kids almost every night. I don't do it every night, but we try to, when I get home from work and Christina's trying to put food on the table, there's just chaos ensuing from every direction. And so I try to sit down with my kids, and what I do is I say, you go pick the book. A book that they have never picked is the Count of Monte Cristo. There is no picture on it. It is just pure text. Whenever they pick a book, it is always a book full of pictures. And you could probably imagine why. I mean, obviously they're two and four. They don't know how to read. Their vocabulary is limited. And pictures are something to which they can relate. They can recognize pictures. They can relate to pictures. Pictures make up what their small vocabularies and minds lack. They are, we would say, immature. Well, guess what? That's how God thinks about us. He believes and thinks that we are immature, and that is true. And for that reason, he condescends, not in anger and wrath, but he condescends in grace, and he gives us visible symbols that are symbols of the gospel. So we have not only the preached word that comes into our ears and reminds us through audible intonations of what Christ has done for us, but he also gives us sacrament, water, wine, and wafer, things that we could touch, things that we could taste, things that we can even hear cracking, hear splashing, hear swishing around in our mouth, tangible things, tangible signs. that point us to Jesus Christ. And I might add in this holiday season, He never gave us a picture of Jesus. It is an amazing providence that in the 5,000 families of manuscripts of the New Testament, and the just as many of the Old Testament, well actually less of the Old Testament, in none of this transmission of revelation do we have transmission of a picture of Jesus. But we do have transmission of a command, an ordinance, a sacrament. that the children of God shall be baptized to come into the body of Christ and they shall be nourished by the Lord's Supper in the body of Christ. So why does he give us signs? Well, very frankly, because we are weak receivers. We are weak receivers. And both word and sacrament are meant to lead us to Jesus Christ. They are means of grace. The word is probably, in the Reformed tradition, the most primary means of grace, but the sacraments are right there next to them. In fact, it was John Calvin that said that every service should have both word and sacrament. That doesn't necessarily mean baptism, but it does mean Lord's Supper and word. Unfortunately for John Calvin, the Geneva City Council would not allow him to do that, but it is pretty prominent in Reformed churches. I wouldn't say it's necessary, but I think it is good to have both the audible gospel preached and the visible gospel received. So what I want to do tonight is I want to try to cover in three points using the catechism as a framework. I want to ask the question, what is the Lord's Supper? So we're going to consider first in question 103, what is the Lord's Supper? And then secondly, and I'll repeat these, who may take of the Lord's Supper? We'll look at that in 104. And then how do I make the most of the Lord's Supper? We'll look at that in 105. So let's turn in our catechisms to question 103. And the catechist asks, what is the Lord's Supper? And we answer, the Lord's Supper is an ordinance of the New Testament instituted by Jesus Christ, wherein by giving and receiving bread and wine according to His appointment, His death is shown forth, and the worthy receivers are, not after a corporeal and carnal manner, but by faith made partakers of his body and blood with all his benefits to their spiritual nourishment and growth and grace. So I wanna summarize under this heading, what is the Lord's Supper, under three heads, okay, or three points. It is an ordinance, a remembering, and a partaking. an ordinance, a remembering, and a partaking. Now, ordinance is a very important word, and any of you who are familiar with Reformed theology, the Reformed tradition, particularly the Reformed confessions, the Westminster Confession of Faith, you will know that the Presbyterian and Reformed tradition tend to use another word for baptism and the Lord's Supper, and that is sacrament. Now the Baptists have almost cut and paste the Westminster Confession of Faith and put it into the 1677, 1689 Second London Baptist Confession of Faith, but they have made changes throughout that are significant. And one of the changes that they make is they use the word ordinance instead of sacrament. Now, one of the reasons why, there's a lot of reasons, but ordinance has to do, you can hear it in the word, it comes from the word ordain or order. And the Baptists are keen to see in baptism and see in the Lord's Supper something that is commanded of God. Something that God commands you to do, and yes, there is a promise attached to it, and we're gonna touch that in a moment, but they prefer that to something like how Roman Catholics and even some Presbyterians would use the word sacrament. Because we're going to look at sacrament in just a second. But the way some people use sacrament, which, as you recall, is the Latin translation of the Greek musterion, which is mystery. So it's basically translating in Latin mystery. And that's where we get sacrament. It's something mysterious. But sometimes Roman Catholics, well, I would say most of the time, Roman Catholics take this idea of seriousness or mystery to such a level that there is actually some type of magic going on in the waters. There is some type of magic going on in the bread and the wine. In fact, any of you who ever messed around with those little kid magician kits when you were young, what is the most famous word that a magician says? Okay, there's another one, starts with an H. Hocus Pocus. You know what? All right, all right, let me scratch that, let me revise that in my notes, all right. Hocus Pocus, you know where that comes from? Any of you who have a Roman Catholic background know when the minister raises up the host, he says something like hocus pocus, may this host turn into the body, blood, divinity, and soul of Jesus Christ. That's where we get the term hocus pocus. So the Baptists were like, we need to be careful. Now, just for the record, Baptists did use the word sacrament. They weren't totally afraid of it. But here's the thing. Ordinance is important because it goes right back to, and you don't need to turn there, but Matthew 26, 26 through 28, where Jesus instituted in the Last Supper this command of the Lord's Supper. Take this as my body, do this in remembrance of me. This cup is the covenant of the new blood, or excuse me, this cup is a sign of the new covenant in my blood which is poured out for as many for the forgiveness of sin. So this is an ordinance and it is very important and you'll notice in the catechism question that it is an ordinance of Jesus Christ and that is very important. Because for Baptists, any ordinance, whether it is the baptism or the Lord's Supper, if it is instituted by Jesus Christ in the new covenant, then our rules and instructions for how we partake of the Lord's Supper and baptism, and even more important, who partakes of baptism in the Lord's Supper, are defined by Jesus in the new covenant, not the old covenant. If you take your cue for how to practice the sacraments from the old covenant, you will baptize your infants. And by the way, if you're consistent and you take your cue from the old covenant of who celebrates Lord's Supper. then all those who are baptized will celebrate the Lord's Supper. So there are some in Reformed churches who practice what is called paedo-communion, child communion. I've literally seen this, where a mother has an infant in her hand and she's shoving the elements into the baby's mouth. That scares me. Because what does Paul tell us about people who take it in an unworthy manner? So, and why is it the case that if you look to the Old Covenant, then you will have your children take the Lord's Supper? Well, the Lord's Supper is the New Testament equivalent of what rite in the Old Covenant? Passover, Passover. And in the Passover meal, was it just the mother and father who ate of the Passover meal? No, it was the children as well. In fact, even today, when I would, in 1999, when I studied in Israel, we went to what's called a Passover Seder. and where the Jews would celebrate it. And part of the tradition, which comes out of Exodus 24, is to have a child stand up. Sometimes it's a teenager, but it could be a five-year-old even, and say, Papa, what is the meaning for these elements? And it's all rehearsed. They go through the whole thing, and then that gives the father an opportunity to explain, well, this Describes our exodus from Egypt and the ten plagues and so on and so forth But the whole idea is if you go to those passages in the Old Covenant where the Passover was celebrated everyone in the family celebrated it everyone who was circumcised and If you follow the Presbyterian mold Circumcision in the Old Covenant is baptism in the New Covenant, so you give it to your children. Passover in the Old Covenant is Lord's Supper in the New Covenant, so you give it to all those who are baptized. Your children are baptized. Now just for the record, not all Presbyterians think that. But coming back to it, This is why when we say ordinance, what we're emphasizing is that this ordinance, this command, this that which is ordained by Jesus needs to take its rules and instructions from Jesus and the new covenant. Now, the reason why we shouldn't be afraid to use sacrament is this. Listen very carefully. And this is fascinating. John Calvin and many of the magisterial reformers One of the biggest reasons why the Reformation took place is because there was a humanist movement around the time of the Reformation that actually preceded the Reformation. When you hear humanist movement, you think of humanism in modern times, that's not what it was. What it was was this movement where people started going ad fontes, back to literature, back to the sources. They were reading, they were thinking, they were engaging in in the arts and literature and so forth. And one of the things that the reformers are famous for, especially John Calvin, is going back to the church fathers. And it was going back to the church fathers, especially as he was reading in Augustine and Tertullian, that he found what came to be the first uses of sacrament. In Tertullian, Tertullian started using the term sacrament, and you know where he got it from? He got it from how it was used in Roman armies when a soldier would give his sacrament, his oath of allegiance to his commanding officer. Say, wherever you go, I will go. Whatever you command me to do, I will do. And Tertullian lifts this from Roman culture and says, this is what Christians are to do to their Lord. And in the sacrament of baptism, you are being initiated into this body where Christ is your Lord. And in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, you are being maintenanced and spiritually nourished by your Lord. But in both cases, he is your master and you obey him. The focus is more on what you do, not necessarily what God does, although that is concluded included. But see, that original use of sacrament is something we should all be very comfortable with. It is a mystery, because we don't totally understand, as we're going to get into in a moment, how it all works. But the idea of a solemn oath is something we're comfortable with. So the bottom line is, whether you use ordinance or sacrament, there are two very important things that need to be seen in the water, the wine, and the wafer. Baptism and the Lord's Supper. And it's this. The objective dimension of the sacramental ordinance, which is God's promise that is symbolized in the symbol. okay, in the sign. So in baptism, what is symbolized there? Forgiveness of sin, cleansing, you have died with Christ, you are raised with Christ to new life, okay? You have passed out of the judgment. All of these things are symbolized in the sign, and the reality of the things signified is given to you through faith. So that's the object of promise that is given for you through faith, but then on the subjective side, what's included in an ordinance or sacrament is you must have faith. The sign cannot be put on you. You cannot partake in the sacrament if you do not have faith. I mean, you can, but it has no efficaciousness, okay? It doesn't do anything for you, except if Paul is right, and I think that he is, if you take it without faith, you are drinking judgment to yourself. Okay, so these ordinances are a great privilege. Remember that the wine represents Jesus's death, his blood that was shed, and that dimension of it, when we think of the gospel in two terms, Christ's righteousness, and a covering of my sin, that covers the crucifixion. And then the bread represents his life. And what did he do in his life? He lived a perfect life, obeyed the law. And then what is transferred to us through faith? His righteousness. That gives me a right standing. And so you see these two symbols are vivid 3D technicolor emblems of gospel. Sins forgiven, righteousness granted, okay? So number one, it is an ordinance. Secondly, under this head, it is a memorial in his death, which is shown forth in the supper. So I'm not gonna spend a lot of time on this, but as Paul says, you can look now at 1 Corinthians 11, 24 and 25. And this is where someone like John MacArthur is gonna hang his hat, which I appreciate. He says, look, you wanna know what's going on in the supper? It's just a remembering. And he goes to 1 Corinthians 11, 24 and 25. And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, this is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. In the same way, also, he took the cup after supper, saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. And we want to say, absolutely, the supper is a remembering what Jesus has done. The old covenant counterpart, again, to the supper was the Passover. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 5 that Jesus Christ is our what? Our Passover lamb. So we are remembering what Jesus has done, but here's the big question, and now we start to wade into the controversy, okay? Is that all that the Lord's Supper is? is all that we're doing remembering a dead friend in the Lord's Supper, okay? I'm gonna argue tonight, hopefully from Scripture, that it is more than that. So we wanna say it's an ordinance, we wanna say it's a memorial, it is a showing forth of his death, we are remembering him. But now thirdly under this head, it is a partaking of the body and blood of Jesus Christ. So here's where the fun begins, okay? This is the Super Bowl of Lord's Supper debate, all right? As the Reformers came into the Reformation, there were already some views about this one question. Is Christ present in the supper, and if so, how? That's the question, okay? Everybody have the question? Now, before we get into what the different sides are saying, you have to understand that on every side, they are working with what I'm gonna call the scholastic theological categories, which is called the sign and the things signified. Everybody's working with these categories. So you've got the bread, and you've got the wine. That is the sign, and the thing that it signifies, so the bread, Jesus' life, and the wine, Jesus' death, that is what is signified by the sign. Now, now that we have that, the Roman Catholics say, Jesus' substance, his substance is, The priest changes through prayer and blessing the host. He changes it into the substance of Jesus Christ. So Jesus' substance gets transferred to it. And this is called transubstantiation. So when he blesses it, the bread and the wine become the body, blood, soul, divinity of Jesus Christ, literally, physically, corporeally. Now the reformer said, no, that's what you're doing is you are equating the sign with the thing signified. You're saying that the very sign itself is the very thing itself and we can't go that far, okay? And let me give you an example why. All throughout scripture God works with signs and all throughout scripture we have this thing signified attached to it. What are some examples of signs that God has given us? Somebody give me an example. Besides the Lord's Supper, besides baptism, something else. Perfect example, okay? Rainbow, and what is the, so that's the sign. What is the thing signified to the rainbow? He'll never flood it again. Now, whenever you see a rainbow, who does not think about that? You don't think about that? Okay, that's fair. That's honesty, that's fine. Most of us, I think, we just instinctively think that is God's promise, right? Now, is that rainbow in and of itself The promise? No, it is a sign to the promise. But the thing that is signified by the promise is there somewhere. It is there as it comes to our mind, right? Okay, so we don't want to say it is the promise, but we do want to say the sign and the thing signified, there is some type of close relationship. What about the smoking pot that God made a covenant with Abraham in in Genesis chapter 15? That is the sign of the covenant as that smoking pot passed through the blood with the dead corpses of animals on either side. Again, that is the sign, but it is not the thing signified, yet the thing signified is close to that sign, is it not? So the Roman Catholics say transubstantiation. Now Luther came in, and of course Luther being Luther, he's like, well, I'm certainly not gonna go with your guys' idea. That's just stupid. And he probably said something even worse than that. So he came up with another idea called consubstantiation. I'm just gonna fill it in. And what that means is he said, okay, when the priest blesses the host, it's not that it becomes the body, blood, divinity, and soul of Jesus Christ, but the body, blood, divinity, soul of Jesus Christ is in, with, and under the bread. It's like, well, good grief, Luther. I mean, that's not a far cry from what we're already dealing with, right? And why is it? Because again, Luther, Roman Catholics, we're going to see in a moment, even the reformers, want to keep these two things close. It's how close that you keep them that is the big deal, the $64,000 question. Now on the other side there was a guy named Ulrich Zwingli, and Ulrich Zwingli, he gets a lot of bad press, but he basically saw these two and he said this is abhorrent to reason, it's abhorrent to scripture, there is no corporeal presence of Jesus Christ whatsoever, and so he said There is a sign, but the thing signified is not there in the supper. So in the supper, all we are doing is remembering Jesus Christ. We're remembering a dead friend. This is typically called real absence. OK, pretty creative, right? The absence of Jesus Christ, he's just not there now. Here's where it gets interesting, because Calvin and many of the reformers, they looked at the landscape and they said, we can't go with any of these. Because this is going too far, it's equating them. This is breaking the relationship between the sign and the thing signified. So what do we do? Well, John Calvin and other reformers came up with a view that has typically been called real spiritual presence. So I'm gonna write them both down. Real spiritual presence. But it can also be called supra-substantiation. Wow, that's a long word. All right. Now, what does Calvin and other reformers say? Well, we start with Christology. We start with Christology, and I was very intentional this morning in talking about and having us read the Chalcedonian Creed because, folks, we have to know our Christology, OK? You're going to get duped by Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons and every crackpot on the street if you don't know your Christology. And the beginning steps is that Jesus is one person with two natures. He has a divine nature and a human nature, okay? So the Reformers started with their Christology and they said, what can be said about Jesus' divine nature may not necessarily be said about his human nature. So Jesus Christ is omni, excuse me, God is omnipresent. Everybody agrees with that, right? He's everywhere all the time. Here's the question, the $64,000 question. Can the attribute of omnipresence be transferred to the humanity of Christ? That's the question. Now Luther said, well, yes, it can. And he said that Christ's body is ubiquitous. It is omnipresent. And if his body is omnipresent, then you can have the host turning into the body, blood, and divinity of Jesus Christ, or being in, with, and under at the supper. But here's the thing. Think back now about Jesus Christ's resurrection. Was Jesus Christ's resurrection bodily? Was it physical, okay? Now let's go to the next step. What happened after the resurrection, after 40 days? He what? Ascended. Was that ascension physical? Yes, it was physical, okay? And to where did he ascend? To the right hand of the Father, okay? Now, if Jesus' humanity is true humanity, then he cannot be omnipresent, because are you omnipresent? Every mother wishes they were omnipresent, right? so that you could change the diaper, make lunch, you know, so on and so forth. We all wish we could be omnipresent. I would send myself for pizza every night, right? But we're not omnipresent. And so to say that Jesus is omnipresent is to do something with his humanity that is foreign to humanity. And that's why we read the Chalcedonian Creed this morning, because if you look at that, and not only that, but the Athanasian Creed and the Nicene Creed, they'll say things like two natures, divine and human, and they cannot be mixed. and they cannot be confused. Well, if they cannot be mixed and they cannot be confused, then Jesus Christ's humanity is not omnipresent. And when he ascended to the Father, he ascended there to stay there. And actually, in Acts chapter three, in a sermon by Peter, chapter three, verse 21, he says that Jesus must remain in heaven until the restoration of all things. He must remain in heaven. So if he must remain in heaven, he can't come down to be distributed in the bread and the wine. So what now turned to Ephesians chapter 2, and we're now going to get Calvin's answer here. So what did Calvin say? Calvin said, okay, here's how this works. There is some, I don't want to say mysticism, but there is some mystical stuff that's going on here, because by virtue of our union with Christ through faith, we are united to Him, as He says in John chapter 15, the vine is united to the branches, the branches are united to the vine, we draw sustenance from the vine, we draw nourishment from the vine, our very life exists eternally with all the benefits of the covenant of God that he has given us as we are connected to Christ. So now look at Ephesians 2, 5, and 6. Paul says this. Sorry, I'm in. He says, even when we were dead in our trespasses, he made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved, and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ. So this is what John Calvin does. He says, what happens in the supper is not that Christ comes down to us. But we, through the Spirit, okay, real spiritual presence, and by spiritual presence, it doesn't mean like Spirit, like my immaterial side, it means the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit lifts us up to heaven to where Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father, and we commune on Jesus there in heaven. Now, I know that that's a stretch, right? It's kinda hard to understand, but see, here's what Calvin was trying to guard. He was trying to guard, keeping the sign and the thing signified together. Because here's the thing, at the end of the day, if you believe that the Lord's Supper is a means of grace, how can you have grace if the thing signified is not there? It's just a sign. It's just an empty sign. And we don't want empty signs, we want signs that are stamped with the covenant of grace upon them. We want signs that are, through faith and with the Spirit, going to actually give us grace, strengthen us, and nourish us. So, the Reformed view, which we see here in the catechism, keeps the sign and the thing signified together. So what is signified by the sign of the bread and the wine? Dependence, sustenance and growth. We draw upon our union with Jesus Christ, his life, his death, his resurrection. We're reminded that we have the resurrection life that he has. We will not start to have it after death. We have it now. Think about that for a second. When does eternal life start? The moment you are regenerated. Eternal life starts the moment you are regenerated. Is there going to be a blip when you're going to die and stuff and go in a coffin and go down? Yes, but you're going to come up. But eternal life has started at regeneration. You have eternal life. You draw upon the life of the Savior. So, this is the Reformed view, and this keeps the sign and the thing signified together. So, is it a corporal eating? No, it's not a corporal eating, but it is a mystical being transferred up to the right hand of the Father and feeding upon Christ through the Holy Spirit, and that's why we call it either real spiritual presence or supra-substantiation, supra meaning above. We are taken up to the substance of Christ by the Holy Spirit into heaven. Now these last two are gonna be very quick. So number two, who may partake? This is Catechism question number 104. Who are the proper subjects of this ordinance? And we answer, they who have been baptized upon a personal profession of faith in Jesus Christ and repentance from dead works. Is it too much to ask that people be baptized before they take the Lord's Supper? No, and here's the reason why. It's proper to ask or expect that people be baptized before they take the Lord's Supper because what is, among other things, the Lord's Supper? It is you examining your heart to see if the prevailing disposition of your heart is one of obedience to the Lord. Is baptism a command? There you go. So if baptism is a command and you haven't been baptized, then is the prevailing disposition of your life one of obedience? No, it's not. And I said that to one lady one time who wanted to kind of turn my screws on it, and the shoe dropped. Because how could you deny that, right? But in the Lord's Supper, the only people who are admitted to the table are those who believe in Jesus Christ, have followed his command in baptism, we would say are part of a local church. Because if you want to be connected to Christ's literal body, but you don't want to be connected to his symbolic body, then there's something wrong there, right? The person that says, I love Jesus, but everybody else can go to hell. Whoa. Well, that's not very Christlike, is it? Because Christ died not just for you, buddy, but for everyone. So to say that we love God, but we hate our brother is a contradiction in terms to say that we love God means that we do love our brothers and want to be in fellowship with them. So it is only those who are in the new covenant through faith. And here's the big deal, OK? When you get baptized, the sign and the thing signified are together. What is happening as I go down in the waters is what is a reality on the inside of my heart is physically being depicted through the right. And in the Lord's Supper, it's the same thing. It's an outward sign of an inward reality, an inward reality, an inward reality. And this is why when we have the Lord's Supper, whether I am officiating it or Pastor Brennan or Pastor Ken, we fence the table. We tell you, you must be a believer, you must be baptized, you must be part of a local church. And if you have ought against your brother or sister and you have not reconciled with them, then leave your offering at the altar and go reconcile with them, but do not come to the Lord's table without doing that. We fence the table, okay? And then finally, number three, worthy receiving. This is question 105. What is required to the worthy receiving of the Lord's Supper? And we answer, it is required of them that they would worthily partake of the Lord's Supper, sorry, that they examine themselves of their knowledge to discern the Lord's body, of their faith to feed upon Him, of their repentance, love, and new obedience, lest coming unworthily they eat and drink judgment to themselves. So what does it mean to be a worthy receiver? It's not whether you've done enough to justify yourself. And that's a very important thing to remember. Within the church, there are hyper sensitive consciences, and then there's consciences that just really don't care and they need to get a little more sensitivity. So as pastors, we're always wrestling with that because we don't want to overburden the super sensitive conscience. But on the other hand, we kind of want to bring the hammer to the guy that doesn't really care. And so it's a hard line to walk. The bottom line is you must examine yourself. You must see if, again, the prevailing disposition of your heart is that you love Christ and that you love Christ more, listen, than your sin. You love Christ more than having a bitter heart against your brother or sister. You love Christ more than the pornography that you've been looking at when your wife is not around or your children, for that matter. You love Christ more than your reputation at work. So if you have to admit to your boss that you lied, then Christ is glorified by my honest confession. You love Christ more than anything. And that's why the Lord's Supper is so important, because think about that for a moment. If we do that constantly, we're not only getting the word which is forming and shaping our souls through the preached word, but we're also getting the Lord's Supper, which I always call a deterrent to sin. Think about this for a second. I don't want to scare my fellow elders, but if you took the Lord's Supper every single Sunday, what are you doing every Friday and Saturday? You're examining your hearts. Now, I would say you should be doing that anyway, but let's be honest, we don't always do that. But if you knew, hey, I'm about to commune with Jesus Christ, better get my heart right. It's one more motivation to purify your heart before the Lord. So let me just end with a few suggestions for how you could make the most out of the Lord's Supper, okay? And the first one I've already mentioned, don't start examining your heart the morning of the Lord's Supper. What's the danger in that? Well, if you get honest with yourself and you realize you have been murdering somebody in your heart in this church, then you shouldn't be coming to the Lord's Supper. You should be going and reconciling to them. And if you're like, OK, well, I didn't have a chance to do it, so I'm just not going to partake. Well, then you're you're missing out on a great means of grace. You're missing out on a benefit of membership in Christ's body. So start examining your heart the Friday or Saturday before. And, you know, heads of households try to lead your wife and your children in doing that. Secondly, repent of sin, believe in Jesus Christ in any situation that you need to. So just jot this down, Matthew 5, 21 to 24. It's what I've already mentioned. But there, Jesus said, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there, remember that your brother has something against you. Leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother and then come and offer your gift. Make sure your heart is pure, as pure as it can be. Now, number three, and this is where it gets a little tricky, but let me just say it this way. Not every ill thought that you have toward your brother in your heart needs to be confessed to your brother or sister. Now hear me out on this, okay? I've had people come up to me and also to my wife and they're like, I've hated you for two weeks. I've never told you that. I've never even gossiped behind your back. Now, can it be a healthy thing? Absolutely. But I'm just saying I don't know that that's necessary because who is the only one that knew that you were doing that? The Lord. And so you confess it to the Lord and I don't know that you necessarily need to go to that person. Now, have you been gossiping about them? or you've been mad dogging them or something, I don't know. I mean, you need to go reconcile, but it isn't necessary if you are driving to work and there's bad traffic and all of a sudden you started hating somebody in church because they have the same car as the person who's in front of you who's going two miles an hour, okay? And then finally, what do you do while the elements are being passed around? One thing that's always odd for me is it's like, okay, I confess my sins for the bread and then you're waiting for the wine. It's like, I've already confessed my sins. What do I do? Well, if you really have confessed all of your sins, not only to God, but to man, then turn it into a moment of worship where you're thanking God for what Christ has done for you on the cross. So it could start with confession and then it can end with thanksgiving, okay? All right, so this is a wonderful, wonderful means of grace. I would love to see not only myself, but our church make much more of it. And you need to be led in that, and so pray for us as we seek to pray through and think through how we can make more of it here. But when it comes around, make much of it and strengthen yourself through it, okay? All right, if you have kids waiting, please go get them. And otherwise, I'll take a few questions if anybody has any questions, okay? Any questions? Yes, sir? Right. The Spirit of Christ. Yeah, yeah. And not only that, but this, in a nutshell, one thing you will find as you study the Trinity, especially in the New Testament, is that, especially in the book of Galatians, he mentions the Spirit of Christ. It is tightly connected with the Holy Spirit himself. And so there's a close relationship between the helper and Jesus Christ. So what did Jesus say? I believe it was in John, what, 13? Um, it's better that I go away because if I go away, who will come the helper? Yeah, the paraclete. So there's a close connection between the spirit and Christ. But yeah, I mean, you know, just remember, it's the Mormons who say that Jesus came and visited them in the Americas. He physically came and visited them in the Americas. And I mean, you know, I mean, They may be right. They may be wrong. I happen to think they're wrong. But if you have a strong Christology, you can just say that just doesn't work because Jesus is not omnipresent, you know. So any other questions? Yeah. Yeah, that's a good question. That's a good question. I'll just answer it this way. There is a diversity of opinion on this. There are some hardcore Reformed churches that are like, not only do we have wine, but we're also giving it to our infants, so that's weird, okay? But I think... I think that we should try to approximate as close as possible the signs that the Lord has given us. Here's the problem, okay? The problem is there are people in most congregations that struggle with alcoholism. You give them one drink, or excuse me, one drop, which it's more in those little cups, you may be sending them down a dark road. And see, as pastors, as leaders, we can't just say, well, just get over it, buck up, pull yourself up by your bootstraps. No, that's putting a stumbling block before them. Okay, that's the first thing. Here's the second thing. The word in Greek, I think it's oinous for wine. It literally just means the fruit of the vine. That's what it means. Do you follow what I'm saying? So what I'm saying is it doesn't. Fermentation is not embedded in the meaning of the word.