Lord, I ask that you would give nourishment, strength, joy, love, peace, patience, kindness, self-control, and, Lord, faith to those who are here today. I pray that you would grant this through your word Grant this through even, very weak lips as my own. And I ask that it would be for your namesake. Lord, that we would be to the praise, not of our glory, but of yours, Lord. And as we sit and we hear from you, as we receive from you, may we do it Knowing we do this with your body, your people, not only here, but throughout the world. May we do this knowing that we struggle in our faith, in our concentration, in our focus, in our love, in our affections. We struggle, but not as though on our own. Lord, you pray for us. You intercede for us. You plead for us, even in this moment now. that we would receive what is beneficial, what is good for us. I pray that you would help us as we want to parent our children, help us to point their attention and focus to little things as we go along. Pieces that they can grasp. May they understand, may they believe, may they rejoice with us today. Lord, I ask that you would grant your peace to us. this word, and Lord as I am perplexed sometimes as to why I'm doing this, I trust that you have ordained weak things to demonstrate your strength. So though this fumble and fall, may the power of God be given to your people that your sheep would be fed. I pray that In your name, amen. This morning we're going to take an opportunity to do something that we don't do often, and that is to take advantage of this text to step aside and look more holistically at what God has given to us in it through the whole witness of Scripture. That is, usually we are preaching and teaching specifically from the text, from the narrative expositionally, and this morning I would like to take the topic that is given and look at that more systematically if we can. However, due to the nature of and the significance of the sacraments in the Church of God, and particularly this morning, the Lord's Table given to His people, there is an abundance of material that we could cover and we could look throughout the Old Testament. We could scour the significance that we bring to the New Testament. We could look in depth at all that the Apostle Paul has said on it, and what Peter has said on it, and what the early church had did with it. And we could look at how the Reformers took it. And there are many, many ways we could approach this. And this morning, I was faced with the question of how we're going to do this. And rather than make this particularly a systematic theology where I am kind of beholden to the words and the language that is given, and truly we are indebted to those who have looked at this with much detail. My effort is going to be to take these verses that Christ speaks of in Matthew chapter 26, and put that alongside of our understanding of the Lord's table. And my goal is that you would be particularly stirred up to love, to desire, to eat the supper together. Now, that might seem like a very modest goal. All I want is for you to desire to eat the supper together. But actually, it is quite a difficult thing to do. That is, to do in a proper way. It's easy for us to come to the supper and desire it for wrong things, but to desire to eat this meal together, to love it, to treasure it, is impossible for me. But with God, all things are possible. And by His Spirit, He may give you the appetite that is necessary to eat this meal." So that's our goal today. I want to look at what God has given us, the blessing of it, the great privilege of partaking in it, and all that is there, and treasure that more in our hearts. And I'm aware that there are those among us, and I think particularly our youngsters, who are not eating the bread and drinking the wine, the juice with us. But this is not a sermon that is not for you. This is for you. So kids, I want you to very much want to eat this supper, to long for the day when you can do that with mom and dad, with grandpa and grandma, or with friends and family. I want you to really want it. I want you to want this because God has given it to his disciples, to his church. And so we're gonna do this, if the Lord wills, under three headings. Three ways of thinking about this to help us to help us set our minds on it and hopefully a way that is easy for us. We want to understand it first that is the Lord's table as, and this might seem obvious, as a table. Not an altar, but a table. Secondly, I want to see it then as, what do we do at a table? We eat. I want us to see it as a meal, a table, a meal. And then lastly, we'll look at it as an oath or a seal of a promise. you will, but so that is it's a table, it's a meal, and it carries with it an oath of God. And if you want to hear the sort of the Reformed language put to that right, there is in all the sacraments both sign and seal. And so in this we have the signs, which I'm putting under the headings table and meal, It's a sign, and we'll get to that. And then at the end, it is also an oath, a pledge of what God has promised. And so let's look at this first as a table together. When we have a table, or if you are invited to a table, I should say, there is someone who is the host of that meal. Perhaps you've been invited to a friend's house or you've been invited out to eat or to dine with someone. You've been invited to a wedding or a celebration. There is a host. And likewise today, brothers and sisters, there is a host of the Lord's table. And I tell you 100%, the host is not the person up here who happens to say a prayer as we eat of it together. The host is the one who prays for you in heaven. The host is Jesus. Jesus is the host of this table, and He has invited you. But first, let's recognize the fact that if Jesus is the host, if Jesus is the one who has instituted this, How ought it to garner our attention? I can't invoke a better name, a higher name, a more important name than Jesus' name. I can't tell you of this and say anything greater than it, than that Jesus has instituted. Now, If I told you this was a tradition that you received from mom and dad, that might mean something to you. If I told you this was a tradition or an institution that you received from a great preacher, maybe John MacArthur or a John Owen or a John Calvin, maybe it would mean something more to you. It pales in comparison to the fact that Jesus has given this to you. Jesus has instituted this and Jesus has invited you to this supper. And so this is not a supper that is given to you merely by the whim of some great man or even some tyrant, but this is a gift to you from your captain, from Jesus. And he gives it to you in the capacity of a mediator. Now what does that mean? Mediator, you can think middle, go between, Jesus is the one that goes between God and us. And this is the capacity in which Jesus gives us the supper. He is the one who instituted this so that we might have fellowship with God in his capacity as a mediator then. And so, how great our obligation to this, and how great our privileges to it. Because Jesus is the one who made it, who designed it, and gave it. But not only this, Think about this for a moment with me. If Jesus, the captain of our salvation, the one who gave us such great blessings, if you know anything about Jesus, you know he is love and affection toward his people. He is truth. In him is all joy and all goodness found. And so if he's the one that gave it, How great ought our expectation to be as we come to this table. So we're thinking of Jesus. He sets this table and he welcomes us to it. And just like if you had received an invitation in the mail, right? If a child invited you to a supper, you might expect a cup of weak lemonade. But if a great man invited you to dine with him, you would expect a feast, would you not? Now if Jesus invites you to a table, what ought you to expect? truly the greatest, the most savory, the best, the most filling, the most delectable, the most delightful feast. That's what we ought to anticipate as we come to the table of our King. So we come to the table as those who are eager to receive. Now this is here a distinction being made between those who want to think of this as an altar, where we come to present our sacrifices of praise, but we say, no, no, no, no. The sacrifice has been made. Jesus has died. He has been offered already. And so this is rather the booty given to us. This is the blessing already won and a sacrifice already done. And so we come to the table, not as those bringing, but as those coming to receive. So we come to expect great things at the table, and we do not come as those who are coming to make much of ourselves, to profess much to one another, or to make God's name something that it isn't or otherwise. We come expecting great things, blessed things from God, expecting to receive. The only thing that we give then is gratitude and thanksgiving. And Jesus, Jesus exemplifies this in our text today. Notice first, as they were eating, table, Jesus took bread, and after what? Blessing it. He broke it. Now, we might think, well, this is Jesus. He could probably pronounce some supernatural blessing on it and then change the substance of it into something. But that's not the sense of what Jesus is doing here as he blesses it. Notice the parallel. And he took the cup when he had given thanks. And he said, when he had, notice, and he took the cup when he had given thanks. So he took the bread and he blessed it. He took the cup and he gave thanks for it. The blessing that is pronounced over this table is a blessing that we pronounce from God. It's a blessing of thanksgiving. We bless God for what he has given. In other words, when I stand in a few minutes over here and I give a prayer, don't think that I'm changing this into anything other than it is. Merely, we receive from God what he has spoken and we just give it to one another. The only thing that we give is thanksgiving to the one who hosts the table, to the one who has invited us to his feast. And so, Christ's sacrifice then is given. We come to receive, we give nothing but thanksgiving. And finally, the last thing I want to notice as we think about this as a table and not an altar, is that at this table, just like when you receive an invitation, don't think of this as a one-on-one table, a date night with Jesus. This is a feast spread for his body. Think of a large table, a table of feasting and celebration where there are many, many people there. Because Jesus says, this is the blood of the covenant, which is for the forgiveness of the sins of many, right? So when we come, when we come and eat the bread, we're partaking of a body which is broken for a body. There is one body, we are all one body, we share in this. So, with the idea of table comes the idea that we all, together, each one of us are partaking of the very same meal. Together, right? This isn't One person eating their meal, and someone else eating their own meal, and yet another person over here having their meal. No, we are partaking in the one meal together. There is fellowship at the table with Christ. There is togetherness. There is partnership. There is shared delights, shared joys, shared blessings, shared professions, shared exclamations of what we savor together at this And so with this idea of the table is, if you want to think of how am I to come to the table, right? How am I to be prepared for the table? Well, along with other things, one of the things that we come to the Lord's table with is charity and our heart toward one another, right? You did not receive a private invitation, an invitation that was for you exclusively excluding Others for whom Christ died? No. Christ died for many. And you come with the body. And so when we come prepared, we come with charity in our hearts for the meal that Jesus invites us to. So Jesus is the host, we come to the table to receive, and we come as a feast together. But then let's look at the meal. The meal itself, right? So we've already said, we look at this as a meal, not a sacrifice, right? This is not something that we are pretending is Jesus dying again and again, but Jesus has died once, and his sacrifice is then given. So this is a feast. We eat of what was already done. Now, when I say a meal and eating, and you're thinking of feasting and consuming many things, you're probably thinking of a large spread and big dishes. And then we open this up and we drink a little teeny cup and we drink a little bit of bread. Now, I'm not here gonna defend whether or not that's the best way to eat the Lord's Supper, but I am gonna point out the fact that that's quite okay, because the meal we're talking about is not the kind of meal that fills our tummies, but the kind of meal that fills our souls. It's a spiritual meal. Now that might sound strange to us when I say spiritual meal. Jesus the host has invited us to a spiritual meal. I don't mean it's an ethereal meal or something imaginary, right? We just think about it like a meal. That's not what we mean at all. In fact, we mean the exact opposite. We mean the meal is just as real as that bread that you hold and just as real as that juice which you drink but we do mean that it is a spiritual meal That is of the Holy Spirit. So when I say spiritual, again, I'm not thinking about some mystical experience or some abstract thing, just spiritual. I'm thinking particularly it's a spiritual meal by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit feeds us. And so we want to look at this spiritual food, and we want to understand it. And first, we want to understand that it's a meal for the soul. And so to understand that, we need to understand something about us. Did you know we're not just bodies, but we have souls? You know, the world does not want you to think of yourself as having a soul many times. The world wants you to take care of your body, to take care of your pleasures and your delights and those things, but You might as well ignore the fact that you're a soul, because no longer have we said you're a soul than we've said you're created in the image of God. Now we ought to recognize this. Bovink says, Baving says that the soul, I'm looking for my notes, the soul is the essence of man. Now he's not saying the soul abstracted from body. The Reformed understand very much our soul is connected with our body. God has given the soul and embodied it. So don't think of, well, my real self is invisible and this is my fake self. No, that would be wrong. But the essence of man is our soul because we were created to be in relationship with God. So, when we think of this, we think of how our soul has two parts. Our soul has the understanding and the will, okay? So, all animals have a body, they don't have a soul. Our souls have an understanding, that's how we can think about things and know things, but it has a will, how we want to do things, okay? And those two things are part of what it is to have a soul. And this is important because when we come together and we feast of the Lord's table, we're filling not our bellies for calories, but our souls. Do you know that your soul needs cared for? Do you know that your soul, Jesus, was looking after your soul when he gave this? You know, we ought to spend more time considering ourselves and teaching our children, yes, you're a man, you're a woman, you have a soul. And did you know, just as sometimes your body is injured or wounded, so also your soul needs taken care of. Because your soul was created to be in relationship to God. You see, it's in our souls that we recognize, first and foremost, our alienation from God. If you want to pretend like you don't have a soul, you might as well pretend there is no God. But God has given you a soul. And in that, we recognize something is deeply wrong if that soul is not understanding that God has put eternity in it, that God has made us for something greater, that we are not mere animals, but we are image bearers. And so children and adults, we need to recognize that just as we care for our bodies, we must care for our souls, and God has given this care to us in, among many things, the Lord's table. And so within our soul, within the will, is also then this idea of the conscience. So the conscience Has anyone heard that word before, the conscience? The conscience is something inside of us that tells us when we're doing right or wrong. When you know you've done something wrong, your conscience bothers you. So sometimes they refer to the conscience as the courtroom of the soul, right? It's the thing that yells at you when you do something wrong. It sort of pounds the gavel and says it's wrong. I think maybe even a more helpful understanding of the conscience is it's that thing which God uses to, if you will, prosecute, or it's the arbiter of the soul. It's the instrument that God uses to help you obey, to show you what is right and wrong. Now our consciences can be more or less corrupt, and I won't take too much of a detour here, but I do want to say this. Our consciences are that which keeps us questioning, am I right with God? We know our sinfulness in our conscience. And particularly for those who have grown up hearing the word, hearing what is right and wrong, many times we wonder, are we right before God? This meal is given to your soul and it is given to your conscience that you might know the promises that God has made for you. And so here, here is a meal that nourishes our souls, that strengthens our souls, that revives and fulfills and satisfies and perpetuates a healthy soul. But how do we receive that then? How do you get something into your soul? I can't take a piece of bread and swallow it and make it go all the way down and it lands instead of in my stomach, my soul. It doesn't work like that, does it? How does a meal come to our soul? And the Bible says it comes to our soul through the Holy Spirit. That is the Holy Spirit is the one who conveys these things to us. So, in order to think about this, I want to think about a few things, but particularly, I want you to realize that the Holy Spirit is that which gives us Jesus, okay? Without the Holy Spirit, we receive nothing of Jesus. Jesus had the Holy Spirit fully. If we have anything of Jesus, we have it by the Holy Spirit. I'm gonna read, I'm gonna venture to read a brave quote to you, and I say brave because It actually took me a while. When I first read it, I thought, that's good. And I read this a few years ago. And then when I turned back to it, I thought, this is really good. So maybe it's just good, or maybe it's really good. I don't know. But this changed my whole thinking about understanding the Holy Spirit. We're often surrounded by people who want to say the Holy Spirit is primarily about supernatural, charismatic, sort of flamboyant kind of expressions. But actually, the Bible has most to say about the Holy Spirit in this way. The Holy Spirit's job is to take Jesus and give it to you, right? So how do you get nourishment into your soul? By the Holy Spirit. So listen to this quote, if you will. Stay with me. So the Holy Spirit, he it is whose office alone has this as his sole prerogative, to take the things of Christ and show the same to us. And the evidences, nor do all the evidences of grace and the genuine fruits of faith in the lives and conversations of the godly set this aside. In other words, all of the good things that you do don't set aside the fact that the Holy Spirit's job is to take Christ and give it to you, to evidence Christ to you. So all those graces, back to the quote now, they are so many proofs of the same. They just prove the Holy Spirit, not the other way around. For no spiritual affection and holy frame can be produced in the spiritual mind but by the Spirit, which is all the fruit of His most divine and most gracious indwelling in us. Neither can the whole of his work, that's the Spirit's work, as to what we see and feel of it, ever produce a foundation for our faith and hope in Christ. If this were the case, it would take us off from the written word, which the Holy Ghost is pleased to make the alone foundation for our faith and confidence in Jesus. Now pause, what is he saying? He's saying, it's not as though the evidence of the Holy Spirit is based on the fruit that I manifest. All those things are good, but that fruit merely evidences the fact that the Holy Spirit is working, sure. But the foundation, what is the Holy Spirit doing? Primarily, the foundation of the Holy Spirit's work is taking the Word of God and bringing it to your heart. What is proclaimed of Christ in the Word comes into you and nourishes and strengthens and provides for your soul by the work of the Holy Spirit. This is the Holy Spirit's job. No one can receive anything properly from the Word unless the Holy Spirit comes and gives it to them. That's what's being said. So, almost done. It is a most undoubted truth that a spiritual perception of Christ as he is revealed in the word of grace is the faith of the operation of God that we receive Christ into our minds and from the revelation made of him in the written word. It is by it Christ is formed in us. So that's what he's saying. Receiving the word, that's how Christ is formed in us. It is in receiving the record which God has given us of his son in it that We believe on Him for life everlasting and all which is by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost so that His divine agency is the utmost importance to us as we can receive nothing from Christ but by Him, by the Holy Spirit. That's what He's saying. Probably an easier quote to read than to be heard out loud. But that was from Samuel Pierce, one of the early particular Baptists. But what he's saying is the whole mode of operation of the Holy Spirit, his sole prerogative is to take the things of Jesus and give them to us, to feed them to us. So I ask, how do you take a spiritual meal and get it into your soul? by the Holy Spirit, by the Holy Spirit working in these means. So, I'll read one other quote. This one's very short. Richard Barcello says this about the conveyance of the Spirit. God the Father is to be praised by believers due to the ministry of the Holy Spirit in ushering into our souls Now here's a big word, soteric eschatological blessings. That means saving blessings about the end, things that we're gonna enjoy at the last days, and those things are purchased by Christ. So to see this in scripture, just briefly, I'm gonna take you to Ephesians chapter one that we read for our call to worship. Ephesians chapter one in verse three. Notice how Paul writes this, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us, past tense, in Christ, with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Now, stop there for a minute. All the blessings that we are blessed with, we are blessed with in Christ. He has already blessed us with them, but where are these blessings from? They're in the heavenly places. So, as Paul writes this letter, he's saying there's heavenly blessings. They already exist in heaven. We're going to enjoy them more fully when we get there. But he has already blessed them to us. They're already coming to us. And this is by, as we read later on, the Holy Spirit. All the way at the end, right? We were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of his glory. How do you know that all these things are given? Well, it's by the work of the Holy Spirit. So what we're driving at here is that the connection between knowing what God has said and receiving it, knowing it assuredly, knowing it blessedly, having it nourish your souls as a sure and steadfast thing, that is the job of the Holy Spirit here. and he does it in the supper. So, we are looking at, let's organize our thoughts, hopefully that wasn't too jumbled, but we're looking at the fact that it's a spiritual meal, it nourishes our souls, it's conveyed by the spirit, and lastly, our last point is, it is received by faith. Now this should be somewhat obvious to us, we're practiced in understanding this, but the Holy Spirit's primary job is to create in us faith. That's how the things that God says become nourishing, become blessed to us. Same way in this meal, remember God invited us to his meal, he bids us to eat of it, but there is no blessing in it apart from faith, apart from believing what God has proclaimed in it. It's not as though merely by the bread and the juice it can be given to you apart from faith. No, the Holy Spirit works faith in you that you might receive all that is proclaimed in the meal. Okay, now, We've been talking about a meal for a long time, and some of you are thinking, but have you even told me what the meal is? I could say, I could tell you, we're gonna have, and I could name some fancy dish. I actually looked up a fancy dish, and then I thought, I probably shouldn't risk trying to pronounce that. And you could say, oh, that sounds fancy, that sounds wonderful. What is it? If you don't know what the meal is, how do you know what it is? And then if I explained that meal to you, you'd say, oh, now I want it. That sounds really good. So what is the meal that Jesus offers? What is it? And the answer is, Jesus is not only the host, he is the meal. Remember, he said, this is my body broken for you. This is my blood. What does it mean for Jesus to be our spiritual meal to our souls? Well, that's an important question. And here is where the rubber really meets the road. That is, here's the part of the message that I really want people to start to understand. If we want to desire the meal, if we want to desire it, really what we want to desire is not it itself, but to desire Jesus. and desire Him for us, because that's what we are, if you will, eating and drinking together. We're eating of the sacrifice of Christ, the crucified body and blood of Jesus, and of that blessing it is given to us in this meal. So we've already talked about it's a copious provision. It's nourishing in every way. It's refreshing and reviving. But we must learn to delight in it, because first and foremost, this meal of Jesus is a thorough pardon for sin. The first thing that we are, if you will, I'm going to say eating. You understand I'm talking about eating spiritually. The first thing that we are eating is God's sure pardon, thorough pardon for sin. Now what a blessing this is. Let us not overlook this. Primarily our need, our soul's need, is for forgiveness of sin. And God has proclaimed this to you in his word, but then he didn't leave it there. He gave you a sign of it. He gave you something that you can look at and taste and say, so surely I have received forgiveness of sin. Secondly, in the supper, not only are we eating the sure forgiveness of sins, we are partaking of a complete provision of righteousness. That means he gives you the good and right standing before his law, right? We've talked about, if you want to use the big terms, Jesus not only forgives our sins, but he gives his righteousness. So also in the table, not only is there pardon for sin, but when you eat it, you are receiving a sure giving, a sure provision of righteousness. That means you have a declaration made to you Because of Jesus, you are right before God. You're right before God. So when we eat this meal, we're nourishing our souls with a sure pardon, with a complete provision of righteousness, and thirdly, than an embrace and a welcome of friendship, even unto adoption. So the King, Jesus, has invited you to a feast. In the feast, you first taste pardon of sin. And in that, you know he's also provided full righteousness, which means you belong at the table, which means you are welcomed. Jesus has you there as a friend. Notice, even in Matthew, he had longed to eat this with his disciples, with those who were his. So when we come together and we take this, we are taking it as those who have friendship and adoption with God. He's not feasting us as strangers, he's feasting us as friends. Fourth, he's giving us then an assurance, now this is maybe some bigger words, of divine grace and benevolence. That means kindness towards us, right? Similar, closely to friendship, God is giving you a meal and you receive it as something that is his kindness to you, his goodness to you. You receive it as something that God gives to bless you. Now, then we also have fifth, this is God's divine interpretation of his sacrifice. Do you want to understand what happened to Jesus on the cross? This is how Jesus the mediator interprets it for you. In other words, we ought not to think of Jesus's death as merely something that happened. Jesus's death is something that provides. Realize that. Jesus is not just someone who died. Jesus is one who died for sins, who provides these things. So when we think of the death of Jesus, don't think of merely an event. You should think of an actual event. But you think of an actual event that gives, that abounds, that is generous. And Jesus wants us to think of his death this way over and over and over again. Think of his death as something that gives, that provides, that is bountiful toward you. And sixth, then, if that is all the case, and if Jesus is providing this sacrifice for you, what is he doing? He's being a priest for you. That means he's providing what you need to come into the presence of God. And in his priesthood, he is praying for you. He is working for you. He is interceding for you. These things are part of what Jesus is giving you at his meal. And so then finally, the climax of these things is the divine fellowship we have with God, the union we have with the Trinity. So I know I see some yawning and stretching, but these are seven things that we eat of together. We can eat of pardon of sin. provision of righteousness, embrace and welcome of friendship, assurance of his kindness and benevolence and grace towards you, and then also his death as provision, so that's the divine interpretation, and then the reality that he is your priest, he prays for you, and that you now have fellowship with the God of the world. fellowship with the triune God. As you eat the bread and the juice, he is saying to you, you're partaking of me. If you partake of me and I with the Father, you partake of the Father by the Holy Spirit through the blood of Jesus. And this is our end, our souls, what they long for most, That is, a soul rightly trained by the gospel, renewed by the gospel. What a soul longs for most is for union, communion, restoration with its creator, with God. And so, then we look at, lastly, in our few minutes, now I'm rushing a little bit, but the last thing, we looked at the table, we looked at the meal, now we wanna look at this as an oath, or a pledge, or a seal to you. Now this is just the abundant kindness of God. Because when God says something, he doesn't need to say it twice. He can say it once, and that's enough. All God had to do was, even, God didn't have to do any, but God would have been abundantly kind to give us merely the words of salvation. but he knows that our faith is weak. He knows that we have a hard time taking it as we ought to, taking it as a sure and steadfast thing, and so as it were, as an added thing or an appendix or a seal to what God has said, he gives you this sign, and it is a seal to you. It seals to you what God has said. And it helps us. So we don't want to think of this as God's word was somehow not sufficient, but rather God's kindness is more and better and given to you because of your weakness of faith. That's what it means to be a seal to your faith. Right? It's not a seal because God's Word needed anything, but it's a seal because our faith is often weak. And so, it's not a seal. Notice, this is important. It's not a seal of your faithfulness, but a seal a seal upon the words that Jesus has delivered to your conscience. It's not a seal of your genuineness, but of His sure word. Okay, and then to pin this together then, to really put an end to it, right? That is, if God is gonna seal his word with this sign, all those blessings that we talked about are sealed with this sign and given to you, how does that come to assure me? Well, it not only assures me particularly, mainly that God's word is true, but as I know that God's word is true, I cannot but also know that it is true for me. There is no gap between those two. in the work of the Spirit. Now, what I mean is this. As much as I behold and savor and love to see that God's Word is true, and I find it more and more and more to be true, that His Word, His promise is sure, then I find myself assured in them. Because if God died for me, I also love the things that he loves. I see in it a great provision made for me and my condition. I see that my soul needs these things and God has given it and I see that it is true. So implicit in our taking and our receiving is secondarily a profession, a confession that God has given all that I need for salvation and I take it and enjoy it. But this is only always downstream of what God has given in his word. So I trust that this is maybe helpful a little bit. As we come to the Lord's table, we ought to be thinking of the provision of sin, the provision for the forgiveness of sin, the provision of righteousness. We ought to be coming with charity toward one another and great awe and wonder at the mystery of all that God has given to us. And we ought to recognize that in the eating and drinking of this, the Holy Spirit is pleased to help convey and strengthen our faith in it. He is working, as we take these things, He is working to give us a sure and better understanding of that faith and that work which God has provided. So, may the Lord be pleased to use this word and cleanse it from anything that I've said which is wrong. Lord, we thank you that you have given us such a wonderful and bountiful meal. I pray that we would think of it as a table where Christ, you are hosting us, where we come eagerly expecting to nourish our souls, where we receive all of these blessings of Jesus. We are feeding on you, and that is a sacrifice which was not just done, but was the provision made for us. And as we think about all these things, setting our mind on what Jesus is and who he is for sinners, we find that it is a good and wonderful thing, a blessed thing, a great thing. And so in treasuring it, we find and we profess that Christ not only died, but that he died for me, and that in this I know that I receive blessing. I know that he communicates his love toward me and his kindness toward me. We pray and thank you for this meal. Amen. If I could have