Would you grab a Bible and turn with me to Joshua chapter 5?
Let me pray for us. Father God, we desire to humble
ourselves under Your Word. You have exalted above all
things Your name and Your Word. So we as your people, we've come
to honor Your name by submitting ourselves to the teaching of
Your Word. So we ask you, Lord, to take up
these next few moments to send Your Spirit as You promised to
us, so that we could be built up and established in the faith
that the body of Christ might build itself up in love.
So we pray, Lord, that You would equip us through this word, and
I pray that You would use me to do it.
Give me joy in it and give us all gratitude for the fact that
our God is a God who is not silent.
You are here with us and you speak to us even now.
And so we await your good pleasure.
Lord, speak and we will listen. We ask it in your name, Amen.
So you're in Joshua chapter 5. And let me say as we dig into
this text, that the context of any kind of word or any kind of
action matters at least as much as the words themselves, right?
So if, if I if I say the phrase to Gracie, maybe Gracie says to
me, I want to eat, I want to eat guacamole for dinner.
And I say, but I don't there's no great strain there, right?
I'm allergic to guacamole makes me sick of my stomach.
So there's no my my words, but I don't don't mean all that much.
But if Gracie looks at me in the face and says, Will Martin, you
are the greatest man I've ever known and I'm so glad I'm
married to you and I love you and I say, but I don't.
It's the same words in different contexts makes all the
difference, right? Stories are the same way.
Any any action when you're in the scriptures, anytime you read
about a about an action in scripture, the key to unlocking
what's actually going on is to make sure that you understand
the surrounding context. And so today there's three
distinct actions that that the text that Joshua chapter 5 is
going to give us, and they're sandwiched in between two very
important things, right? We're going to see 3 distinct
movements, 3 distinct actions that are sandwiched between
Joshua leading the, the children of Israel over the Jordan into
the promised land. And, and, and that's, it's after
that and it's right before Jericho falls.
And so these actions, when we see them in that light of it's
sandwiched between those 2 events, they come to us as a
preparation for for conquest, as a, as a response to what's
happened and as a preparation for contact or for conquest.
And so the three actions, and I'll show you each in turn,
circumcision, celebration and visitation.
Those are the three things that that God shows us in Joshua
chapter 5 to prepare God's people for conquest.
So the first we're going to see a circumcision or renewing the
covenant with the Lord. So I want to reread this to you
and verses one through 1 through 9 and I'll make a couple of
comments on on the way. Joshua, the book of Joshua says
as soon as key, key phrase, as soon as So there's a time stamp
there as soon as all the kings of the Amorites who are beyond
the Jordan to the West and all the kings of the Canaanites who
are by the sea heard as soon as they heard that the Lord had
dried up the waters of the Jordan for the people of Israel
until they had crossed over their hearts melted.
There was no longer any spirit in them because of the people of
Israel. So Joshua says right after God
has dried up the waters of the Red Sea, all the enemies of
Israel lose all of their courage.
And you might understand that like they are being led by a God
who can do wonders that we have never seen.
And so the enemies of Israel in this moment are terrified.
Now pop quiz What do you do if you're in a fight and your enemy
is terrified, has no spirit, wants to run?
What do you do if you're a good general, you sound the charge,
you go, you fight, you pursue. Look in verse 2.
At that time, as soon as all of the enemies of Israel are
terrified, at that time, the Lord said to Joshua, make Flint
knives, circumcise the sons of Israel a second time.
Isn't that wild? Do something that will
debilitate your army. What do you think about that?
It says so Joshua made Flint knives and circumcise the sons
of Israel at Gibeath. Ha Arala, your guess is as good
as mine. How that's supposed to be read.
It means the hill of the foreskins.
OK, so you have hundreds of thousands of men who need to be
circumcised. And so the pile of gross, bloody
flesh is substantial. And this is the reason why
Joshua circumcised them. All the males who came out of
Egypt, all the men of war had died in the wilderness on the
way after they had come out of Egypt.
The though all the people who came out had been circumcised,
yet all the people who were born on the way.
That's the key phrase. Anybody born on the way in the
wilderness after they had come out of Egypt had not been
circumcised. That is contrary to command,
that's contrary to law. They had not kept the covenant.
Parents did not put their the sign of the covenant on their
children. For the people of Israel walked
forty years in the wilderness until all the nation, the men of
war who came out of Egypt perished because they did not
obey the voice of the Lord. The Lord swore to them that He
would not let them see the land that the Lord had sworn to give
their fathers, to give us a land flowing with milk and honey.
So it was their children whom He raised up in their place that
Joshua circumcised, for they were uncircumcised because they
had not been circumcised on the way.
Now in verse 8, when the circumcising of the whole nation
was finished, they remained in their place in the camp until
they were healed. That might take a beat.
And the Lord said to Joshua, Today, I have rolled away the
reproach of Egypt from you. And so the name of that place is
called Gilgal to this day. It means to roll away, to roll
away their approach. So I don't know if you know this
or not, but an adult man who receives circumcision needs the
weekend off. Like that's not something you
want to do and then go dancing as a as an example.
You don't want to do that. So I just want you to see that
right before the battle in a sight of all of the enemy who's
already terrified, God has his people, his army perform an
action that will mean all of the fighting men are down for many,
many days. And it's marvelous, right, that
God would God, our enemies are watching.
The last thing we want to do is show weakness.
They're afraid. Let's charge.
And he says, no, I want you to do something that that is going
to make you very weak. If you remember in your old, in,
in the book of Genesis, God's Jacob's sons do this to the men
of Shechem. They say, hey, we, we, you can,
they, they took their sister and so they say you can marry her if
you're all circumcised. They do that.
And on the third day while they're laid up recovering, 2
guys come in and kill the entire village.
This is a weakening, A weakening thing that God commands his
people to do in this exact moment.
So if you were planning conquest, this would straight up
be the very last thing that you would do.
You would never do this to ensure that all of your army
cannot move for three days and that the enemy knows this.
The enemy is going to watch this.
This is like many of other gods of God's war strategies.
It seems absurd and you can hear the realist, right?
Save your prayers, armies. Wars are won with soldiers.
So. So don't give me the covenant
renewal. Don't give me prayer as a
strategy for war. Don't give me getting right with
God as a strategy for war. You need soldiers.
Well, as absurd as this may sound, this is exactly what God
had Joshua do. And He did it because He wanted
Israel then and us now to know it in our souls that it is not
to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name.
Give glory. Some may trust in Chariots and
some may trust in horses, but we will trust in the name of the
Lord our God. Brothers and sisters, we can
embrace anything that God commands that makes us feel
weak. We can embrace anything because
His strength is made perfect in weakness.
You can imagine, you can imagine all of the people coming to
Joshua and saying, do we have to do it now?
Let's, let's go win some fights first.
Do we have to weaken ourselves? Now don't miss the purpose of
this weakness that God inflicted upon the men of Israel.
It was to put them into their covenant strength.
So let me explain this. Genesis 17.
God had commanded Abraham that all of his male offspring should
be circumcised on the eighth day of their lives, and that this
circumcision would be a sign of belonging to the covenant of
grace. And for sure, later on, Israel
eventually turned that circumcision into what they saw
as a covenant of works, as though if you just do the right
things, you'll get the right result.
And that's obviously not the case.
But it was not. Circumcision was not given as a
covenant of works. It was given as a covenant of
grace. Circumcision was an objective
action that incorporated people into the covenant community.
They just showed it, marked them out as you.
You belong in the community of God's people, and that community
was formed by God's grace, not by man's doing.
And so for thousands of years, there were two types of people
that received the sign of circumcision.
You had, First off, the children of people inside the covenant,
all of them were supposed to be circumcised on the eighth day.
And then you had strangers who were born outside but saw the
goodness in the grace of God and wanted in.
They would be circumcised and then they would be counted in
the in the community. So you have two groups of people
that received the sign so and the scriptures tell us that any
circumcised male in a stranger's house was welcome to partake of
all the things that were available to natural sons.
And the chief of those blessings was the Passover.
So it's important for us to see that was the command, everybody,
you're to circumcise your son on the 8th day.
But here we have a whole generation of Israelites that
haven't been circumcised. We should ask why?
Why did they not obey this faithless generation, the one
who saw the Exodus, though they had been circumcised themselves,
they didn't circumcise their children, which is why Joshua
had to do it when they reached the promised land.
And this is a shame, right? Because circumcision puts the
marks of the covenant of grace on your children and then you
get to raise them up in the faith.
And they had withheld this from their kids.
God insisted on children of the covenant being put inside the
covenant at 8 days old through no choice of the child.
He didn't say wait till they grow up and accept it.
You just do it and you raise them in the faith.
All of this to highlight the sovereign nature of the
salvation of our God. And because of him, Paul tells
us you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God,
righteousness and sanctification and redemption.
So that as it is written, let the one who boasts boasts in the
Lord. Yes, you must boast, but your
boast is in the Lord because you have everything you have is
because of your identity, your your union with Christ.
And Paul just told you that the only reason you're in union with
Christ is because he put you there.
So he gets all the glory, you get all the joy.
So the first order of business for Joshua is for the second
generation down from the exodus to be to put right what their
parents got wrong, to perform the duty that their parents
neglected, the duty of circumcision.
They needed to bear the sign of the covenant before they
conquered, before they converted, or before they killed
anybody in the promised land. And this is massively important,
mainly because as Christians, sometimes we get a false notion
that God is a God who will bless the good and he'll curse the
bad. And it's fundamentally not true.
God is not a God who blesses the good and curses the bad.
In reality, God has always been a God who blesses with his
covenant grace the bad people that are in covenant with him
because that's all there are. News flash, it's all we have is
sinners in covenant with God or sinners not in covenant with
God. And God has always been the God
who blesses bad people who are in covenant with Christ.
You say true and I say thank you and God curses the the
unconverted who refused to be in covenant with Christ and you can
set your watching warrant on it. It is God's grace and mercy that
matter here ultimately, not your performance and not mine.
God is not at our good pleasure, we exist at His but, but the
means of covenant belonging really matter to Him.
The way you come into covenant with God really matters to God.
So it is a true statement worthy of all acceptance that we are
justified by grace alone through faith alone and Christ alone for
God's glory alone. And there's no but coming to
that sentence, that's just true and full stop foundational fact.
We are justified by grace alone, through faith alone in Christ
alone. And and the God who taught us
that through Christ also said that we should fear the Lord and
keep his commandments. Does our, does our obedience
matter? Of course it does.
We're not saved by it, We're saved by faith.
But our obedience does matter. So it means Christian obedience,
like baptism is not negotiable. It's not a take or leave thing.
It's been commanded and so we carry it out.
You cannot not do it. So let me ask you, can an
unbaptized person be eternally saved?
Can somebody who who hasn't been baptized be eternally saved?
There's no question about it. The answer is of course, of
course they can. The thief on the cross was never
made wet with the waters of the triune name.
He's never baptized. On the other hand, can a man who
sleeps on his baptism, or would rather not like I, I don't know,
it's just, it's weird. I don't really want to do it.
I'm fine with Jesus. I love Jesus, but I just don't
want to obey him. Can he claim to be a Christian
answer? Absolutely not because Christ
has commanded it. And if you love Christ, if you
believe in him, if you've been justified by grace through
faith, you do what he says. And so baptism isn't is is very
important. It's not a saving thing, but it
is an obedience thing that that shows that you are walking under
the lordship of Christ. So God help the Baptist, and I
know this because I used to be 1.
Many of them are so backward in the way that they view the
sacraments because they haven't seen the pattern that the Old
Testament sets for the Church. So a lot of Baptists will
withhold the sign of covenant belonging, the sign of baptism.
But then they'll, they'll bring their kids to the Lord's Table
and, and listen, that's just if it was done.
And if you've ever done this and you did it in innocence, which
is totally fine, you didn't know any better, There's no, I don't
think there's judgment for you. Be of good cheer.
The Lord always overlooks our sincerely motivated errors.
But listen to me, that's an error.
You can't, you can't do that. Don't do that.
It would be like a man saying that it doesn't really matter
which comes first, birth or breastfeeding.
There is a distinct order, birth and then sustenance, baptism,
then Lord's Supper. So if you look at the text,
we'll see it in a second. What immediately follows the
circumcision of the nation is the celebration of the Passover
that they kept for the very first time since the Passover.
They were supposed to keep the Passover every year, remembering
what God did in Egypt. They had not kept it since they
left Egypt. The rule given in Exodus 12 was
as clear as crystal. Listen, all the congregation of
Israel shall keep the Passover, and if a stranger shall sojourn
with you and would keep it with you, let all his males be
circumcised, and then he may come near and keep it, and he
shall be as a native of the land, but no uncircumcised
person shall eat of it. There shall be one law for the
native and the stranger who sojourns among you.
So when we read in Joshua 5 that Israel had not been practicing
circumcision in the wilderness, we can conclude with authority
that they had also not been keeping the Passover, because
you can't do the second without the first.
You can't keep the Passover unless you've been circumcised.
So not only were they not circumcising their children,
they weren't welcoming them to the covenant feasts.
You can't Make Love to your wife until you have a wife.
You couldn't keep the Passover to the Lord until you had a
Lord, until you were circumcised.
And therefore you can't come to the Lord's table until you have
the Lord as your Lord, through repentance and through faith and
through baptism, you can't do it.
So as the Lord Jesus commands us to be baptized and then you come
to the table. So the second action of
preparation in this text circumcision first, which puts
them in covenant right covenant fellowship with the Lord.
The second action is the Passover.
Read it really quick with me in in 10 and 12 verses 10 through
12 while the people of Israel were in camped at Gilgal.
They kept the Passover on the 14th day of the month in the
evening on the plains of Jericho.
And the day after the Passover, on that very day, they ate of
the produce of the land, unleavened cakes and parched
grain and the manna ceased. It's very important phrase, the
manna ceased the day after they ate of the produce of the land.
And there was no longer manna for the people of Israel, but
they ate of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year.
OK, so circumcision and then Passover.
Now there's a detail here that's a really important that I want
to point out to you. It says that the manna ceased
the day after they ate the produce of the land.
So from this time forward there was no more manna to come to
God's people. And so manna had been a a
miraculous provision for a particular people for a
particular season. And so we should point out that
it's that it's not for us to make normative something that
was UN normative. Does that make sense?
Most of the people of God have never tasted manna.
It was given to particular people in a particular season
and it it is abnormal. So we don't want to make that
normative for the Christian life.
And so let me ask you, could God have continued to feed his
people with manna? The answer is, of course, it
wasn't hard for him. He can still do anything that he
wants down to our day. We could have been feasting on
manna, but he didn't want to do that.
He had better plans. So I'm not going to fight
anybody on this, but it's important that I point this out
to you. When we read the book of Acts
and we see God doing amazing things through the hands of the
apostles, signs, wonders, tongues, prophecy, all of these
things. The reality is we read some of
those things and don't don't think carefully about how and
why God is giving those things and we make those normative.
Certain denominations will say, if you have not spoken in
tongues, you have not received the Holy Spirit.
That is a lie from hell. That's not true.
It is not normative Paul Paul even says do all of you does
everyone speak in tongues? Not everyone speaks in tongues,
does he and the obvious answer is no.
Not everyone prophecies, does he and the obvious answer is no.
So these were things given at a particular time for a particular
purpose in a particular season. And we ought not read the book
of Acts and say I I don't see that worked out in my life.
Therefore I must be off. Don't don't do that.
It's they're, they're, they're non normative gifts now
question, can God still do those things today?
You better say, yes, of course he can.
God can do anything he wants to do.
We just want to be careful to, to not make normative those
things that are not given in the Scripture as normative things.
So the manna was for a season and then it ceased when they got
into the promised land and God raised them up into better,
better things. So in response to crossing into
the Promised Land and in preparation for the conquest of
Canaan, Israel renewed their covenant with the Lord by being
circumcised, the covenant sign of the the sign of covenant
belonging, and then by celebrating Passover, which is
the sign of continued covenant sustenance of the Lord.
So the two counter signs in the new covenant, the counter sign,
the circumcision is baptism and the counter sign to Passover is
completed by Lord's Supper. Both of those signs are, this is
essential. They are not replaced, they are
completed. We don't do them anymore.
We don't keep, we don't, we don't have to circumcise our
sons anymore and we don't have to keep the whole Seder meal and
dress up in the funny clothes like Hasidic Jews.
We don't have to do that because those things were shadows and
the full completion has come. And so now we have a bloodless
sacrament. We baptize our children and we
baptize the stranger who wants to be a part of God's people.
And we have not a full Passover, but all of it summed up in the
bread and the cup that Christ says, Do this in remembrance of
me. But there's a third, and there's
a final act, and it is glorious. And it comes both again as a
response to what has come before and as a preparation for what is
about to come, for the battle of Jericho and the conquest of the
land. And this action is the arrival
of what is the most glorious person in all of the Bible.
He's going to come right here. So watch this in verse 13, when
Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes, it's very important
phrase, and looked and behold, he's calling your attention.
There's something magic is about to go on.
He lifted up his eyes. He looked and behold, a man.
This brings you to Genesis 18. I'll explain that to you in a
moment. A man was standing before him
with his drawn sword in his hand.
And Joshua went to him and said to him, Are you for us or for
our adversaries? And tremble at these words.
And he said, no. Are you for us?
Are you for our enemies? No, no, no, I am the commander
of the army of Yahweh. And now I have come.
And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and he worshipped him
and said to him, What does my Lord say to his servant?
And what happens when any creature, be it Angel, priest,
leader, when any creature has another creature fall and do
homage to them, what do they always say straight away?
No, get up. I'm a a creature like you.
I'm a servant like you. Don't do this.
Don't worship me. Watch what this man says.
What does my Lord say to his servant?
Says the lesser, the lesser Joshua to the greatest Joshua.
And in verse 15, the commander of Yahweh's army said to Joshua,
take off your sandals from your feet, for the place where you
are standing is holy. And Joshua did so.
It is not enough that Joshua is on his face before Christ, you
must take your shoes off, because this man is a holy,
holy, holy man. This is God in the flesh, our
Lord and our Christ. And let us all tremble at His
name. So in Genesis 18, the same
phrase is used. Abraham is sitting in his tent
and it says when Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, behold,
he saw three men. So it's the very same phrase.
Anybody who who who tracks well with details in the text is
going to go, oh, that reminds me of Abraham.
Abraham lifts up his eyes, he looks and he sees the most
glorious person in the entire Bible walking with two other
mints. It looks like three men.
But as the text unfolds, you realize it's Yahweh and it's 2
angels. And the angels by comparison to
this one man are not even worthy of mention next to this guy.
They were not even worthy because the man was none other
than Yahweh in the flesh. He's also called the Angel of
the Lord who is Christ Himself. And obviously these verses take
us back as well. The Exodus chapter 3.
Listen to these words. I just want you to see the fire
here and the glory. Moses was keeping the flock of
his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian.
He led his flock to the West side of the wilderness and came
to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the Angel of the Lord
appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a Bush.
OK, so you have the Angel of the Lord who is appearing to Moses
in in a fire that's in a Bush. And Moses looked and behold the
Bush was burning but was not yet consumed, but yet was not
consumed. And Moses said, I will turn
aside to see this great sight. Why the Bush is not burned.
When Yahweh saw that Moses turned aside to see God called
to him out of the Bush. Wait a second, I thought it was
the Angel of the Lord that was appearing to Moses inside the
Bush. And now Yahweh is calling to
Moses from the Bush. What is going on?
The every single time in the Old Testament you see a man that is
called the Angel of the Lord, that is Christ himself.
And this man says to Moses, Moses, Moses.
And he said, here I am. And he said, do not come near.
Take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you're
standing is holy ground. And he said, I am the God of
your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of
Jacob. And Moses hid his face, for he
was afraid to look at God. This is Christ himself.
There's one other text that I want to read you that that
fulfills all of these things. This is John in the Book of
Revelation. He says, I turn to see the voice
that was speaking to me. And on turning I saw 7 golden
lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of
man, clothed with a long robe and a golden sash around his
chest. The hairs of his head were white
like white wool like snow. And his eyes were like a flame
of fire, and his feet like burnished bronze refining a
furnace. And his voice was like the roar
of many waters in his right hand.
Think about this. Joshua sees a man, and what is
he holding? It's a sword.
This is the same man. What is he holding in his right
hand? I'll give you a hint, it ain't a
sword in his right hand. Watch the change.
He held the seven stars, 77 liters of seven churches.
And then it says from his mouth came a sharp 2 edged sword, and
his face was like the sun shining in full strength.
Post resurrection and ascension, Christ no longer bears a
physical sword like he did in Joshua's day.
The sword comes out of his mouth, and it's the sword that
converts people, converts his enemies, right?
He does more converting than killing in the New covenant.
And so he's got the sword of his, the sword of his mouth, the
sword of his word. And there's no accident that
Joshua here hears the same command as Moses because he is
in the presence of the very same God whose name is Christ the
Lord. The presence of our Christ makes
the very ground on which he stands untouchably holy.
And so Joshua is now met face to face with the greater Joshua.
There are two things that Joshua the greater says to Joshua the
lesser that I want to do nothing but marvel at with you.
I'm not going to. There's there will be no there
for there will just be an attempt to help you marvel at
what Jesus says. Joshua the lesser quote, Are you
for us or for our adversaries? Joshua, the greatest?
No, no, no. Whose side are you on?
No, we might ask, what do you mean?
Jesus, aren't you for us? Aren't you on our side?
And the answer that Christ would give us is gloriously No, I'm
not, I'm not on your side. Listen to me, brother and
sister, Jesus Christ is not on your side.
So we might say, horror of horrors, are you then for our
enemies, for our adversaries, to itchy answers?
No, I'm not for them either. So we ask, OK then Lord, if
you're not on our side and you're not on their side, whose
side are you on? To which he says mine.
The only side that matters is mine, the side of Christ.
I'm the commander of the army of Yahweh.
And so you, Joshua the lesser, are welcome to be on my side.
I would love for you to be on my side, but I am not on yours.
You can be on mine. It is only my side that matters,
says the Lord Christ. Jesus doesn't join us in our
fight as we fight our fights for our ends with our best means.
Instead, much more wonderfully, he summons us to join in His
fight, and He promises His presence, His provision, His
victory when we fight with His weapons in His ways, for His
purposes, He will not be on your side.
He will not do it, but you can be on his glory to God on high.
We can be on the side of Christ. Blessed be his name forever.
So name him, brothers, Name him with love as strong as death,
but with awe and wonder and baited breath.
He is God the Savior. He is Christ the Lord, ever to
be worshipped and trusted and adored.
He's not on your side, but you can be on his.
God be praised. I've got a word that I'm not
going to give you the answer to for another couple of weeks, but
I want you to think on it and I want it to echo in your mind as
you think about Joshua and you think about the story for weeks
to come. I want you to think about this.
Are you for us? Are you for your, for our
adversaries? And his answer is no.
That means something. And it's going to, it's going to
become clear in the book of Joshua.
I just want you to think on it. I want you to dwell on it and
I'll give it to you sometime, but you got to wait.
Secondly, the second thing that the greater Joshua says that
we've got to marvel at, he says, now I have come.
What does that mean? Did you see that?
No, I'm the commander of the army of the Lord of Yahweh.
Now I have come. Joshua the Lesser received the
promise from Joshua the Greatest that he has come, and he's come
in such a way to indicate that this man has come to remain in
the fight. You will search the book of
Joshua in vain to find the text that says I have come and now I
am going. He doesn't do that.
He comes to stay and to stay in the fight.
It's not a pat on the back. And they return to heavenly
glory. I have come and I will be with
you to the end of the age and give you victory.
I hope that sounds familiar. So I ask you, brothers and
sisters, if this man, this glorious God would deign to let
us be with him on his side and and delight Himself to be with
us and to give us what He has promised, what possible work in
this world could be too difficult for the people of God?
What could you possibly imagine would be too difficult if this
man is is with us, or rather, if we are with this man on his
side, what could be too difficult?
Brothers and sisters, we've been baptized into covenant union
with our Triune God, and He intends to feed us now at His
table so that we can know for good and all that this Lord
Jesus Christ, the Commander of the Lord's army, has come.
He has come to us. He has come to give us a
victory. We are his people.
We are on His side. We have received His grace and
His mercy. We are on His mission, fighting
his fight with his weapons in His ways, waiting for his
victory to be enjoyed marvellously through our hands.
If there was ever a communion text that is not a communion
text, this is it. So feel free to take your
sandals off, for the Lord of hosts is with us here at the
table. And therefore this is holy
ground, because Christ the Lord is here.
Come to the Holy One of Israel. Come to our God and to our King.
Come to the lion of the tribe of Judah, who was worthy to take
the scroll and has opened the seals.
Come to him who stands as a lamb slain, yet raised to dominion.
Come to him who was dead, but who lives forever more.
Come to the one who holds the keys of death and hell.
Come to that self, same Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Good
Shepherd, who calls his own sheep by name.
Come brothers and sisters, and welcome to Jesus Christ.
Let me pray for us. Lord, would you do for us what
you did for Joshua in a greater way?
Would you draw near to us as we come to your table, as we eat
this bread and drink the cup, remembering that this is your
body broken for us, your blood shed for the forgiveness of our
sins, and that we do this in remembrance of you?
And when we eat the bread and when we drink the cup, we
participate in the body of Christ.
Lord, these are holy things. Would you draw near to us?
Would you? Would you put us in awe of your
presence and then comfort us with the gospel that because of
what Jesus has done on our behalf, we can actually be
received here? So Lord, we pray that you would
pour out your spirit and that He would make this table
efficacious to us and comfort us in it.
We ask it in His name, Amen.