Would you please turn in your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 1?
While you're turning there, let me just say and then pray.
The first thing I need to say is if y'all were paying attention
to Trey's prayer, you do not need this sermon any longer
because that's just the heart of this text.
And so man, thank you, brother, for for leading us.
Let me pray for us and then we'll dig into God's Word.
Father God, we do need to live in light of the irrevocable
reality that happened when Jesus ascended into the heavens
leading captivity captive and sat down at your right hand.
After having made purification for sins once for all, He sat
down at your right hand, all enemies being placed under His
feet. And He now ever lives to make
intercession for US, claiming and proclaiming and pleading His
precious blood over us. When we in our struggle with sin
fail, He pleads our 'cause our Advocate with the Father.
Lord, help us, help us to know and live in light of the truth
of the ascension. Would you grant that this text
would have its work in US and give us joy in it?
We ask it in Christ's name, Amen.
So you're in Ephesians chapter 1.
And let me say today, if you, if you don't know, today is
National Idaho Day. Congratulations, right?
We can we can eat some potatoes and welcome students that are
here from Idaho. Today is also national cherry
cobbler day. OK, so feel free to make a
cherry cobbler and then one of the other meaningless holidays
it's it's ascension Sunday. You know, no big deal, right?
We trace prayer. So interesting that we were both
thinking along the same, the same lines that as as
Christians, man, we really love Christmas and we ought to love
Christmas and we really love Easter and we ought to love
Easter. But we tend to not know what to
do with Ascension Sunday. It's Christ left us and went
into heaven where he's safe and we're suffering.
And you know, I don't know, but it's just time to time to suffer
through. Well, the ascension of Christ
fundamentally changed everything about the cosmos, everything,
absolutely everything. And So what I want to do today
is I want to look at this text with you where Paul prays for
the Ephesian church and by proxy prays for us so that we can dig
into these things as well. So in verse 16, we'll just read,
I'll make a couple of comments here and then, and then we'll
dwell richly on it. Paul says, I do not cease to
give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers.
And so we would ask Paul, what are you praying for us?
What, what, what is your, what is the content of what you want
for us? Verse 17 that God, the God of
our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, that he may
give you the spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the
knowledge of him. What does Paul want?
He wants you to know God. That's what he wants more than
anything that you would know God and then he says he he qualifies
what it means to know God in verse 18 having see the the the
participle there. So so he gives us a spirit of
wisdom and a revelation in the knowledge of him having the eyes
of our hearts enlightened that you may know and that that
phrase there that you may know is it governs these these three
main movements of what he's going to pray.
So we would ask, and we should ask Paul, what do you want us to
know as we, as we know God, as we, as we And you think you
ought to think Genesis, end of Genesis 1.
No, Genesis 4, Adam knew his wife Eve.
And they can see this is not intellectual knowledge.
This is intimacy that we would know these things about God.
And he mentions 3 things. And I want you to catch him.
And then we'll, we'll think about them together that you may
know experientially, intimately. First of all, what is the hope
to which he has called you? Secondly, what are the riches of
his glorious grace and his glorious inheritance in the
Saints? So the hope that He has called
us to the riches of his glorious inheritance.
And then thirdly, in verse 19. And what is the immeasurable
greatness of His power toward us who believe those three things?
That's what He wants you to know.
What is your hope? What is the riches of His
glorious inheritance, and what is the immeasurable greatness of
his power toward us? You believe so.
We're going to start with with hope.
OK? So many Christians think that
life with God means that we have been called to various
unpleasant things. Somehow we pick up this notion
that Christianity is first of all just to call this suffering.
And when you come to Christ, what he wants you to do is is
suffer. And it is true that we have been
commanded to endure suffering whenever it comes, not to seek
it out, not that we go trying to find suffering, but that we try
to faithfully live out the the life that God has laid before
us. And suffering inevitably
sometimes comes, but never as Christians, never do we ever
suffer without an end. Insight.
Suffering is not the end for which Christ has called you.
I'm just calling you because I want you to suffer and die.
No, suffering to the Christian is never the home of a
Christian. Suffering is the valley we pass
through in order to get home. So he hasn't called us just to
suffer as an end in itself, but to be faithful through it until
he brings us to greater glory. Some, some Christians think that
the hope to which God has called us is that he's called us to
just self sacrifice. And it is true when Bonhoeffer's
line, when Christ bids a man, calls a man, he bids him come
and die. It's true we are to die to
ourselves and live to God. We are to mortify the deeds of
the flesh, but again, never as an end in itself.
The mortification of the flesh, the sanctification of a
believer, is life in this short transient period until we get to
where God is going to take us. So it's the necessary means of
growth until God is through forming his Son in us, at which
point in time there will not need to be mortification of sin.
You will one day on the authority of God's Word, you
will reach the the place where all things are allowed, where
everything you long for is exactly what is pleasing to God
and what a liberty and freedom that would be.
That everything I want, he says that's exactly what I want for
you. You will have your affections,
your entire body will be sanctified.
So no, God does not call the Christian just to eternal self
sacrifice. No, nor does he call us to a
white knuckle remnant. This is another when when Paul
says he wants the Christians to know the hope to which he has
called you. I'm just I want you to know some
things, some mistakes that we make here and white knuckle
remnant is one of those things true.
Sometimes we feel like Elijah who said these words to the
Almighty God. He says I've been very jealous
for the Lord, the God of hosts for the people of Israel have
forsaken your covenant and thrown down your altars and
killed your prophets with a sword and I even I only am left.
Do you ever feel like, men, where are faithful Christian
men? Where are faithful Christian
women? Where are faithful Christian
churches in our land? Where have they all gone?
And so sometimes we feel like, Lord, we're just all alone here.
God told Elijah, even then, no, you're not all alone.
I have reserved for myself, I think it was 7000 men who had
not bowed the knee to bail. And even now, when we feel
alone, we realize there's actually great pockets of
faithfulness. It is true that often we feel
like a faithful minority holding fast to the Lord and to His
word. But this is not the home of a
Christian. This is not the home of a
Christian. We love to remember that Abraham
was justified by faith, and rightly so, that Abraham
believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.
But we need to also remember the content of the promise that he
was believing. Does anybody want to take a stab
in public, risking the shame of getting the wrong answer?
What was the promise that Jesus Christ, the word of God in
Genesis, it says the word of Yahweh came to Abraham and
brought him outside. And Jesus standing with Abraham
said, look to the heavens, countless stars if you're able,
period, end of sentence. And he waits.
And then Jesus promises Abraham, So shall your offspring be.
And Abraham believed that promise, and it was credited to
him as righteousness. Abraham was justified by taking
Christ at his word, that when it is all said and done, the amount
of the redeemed humanity will be with Christ will be greater than
the amount of humanity that remains unredeemed.
So we need to stop making as ends what the Bible call light
and momentary suffering, which prepares for us a weight of
glory. Peter says it this way, and this
you rejoice, though now for a little while if necessary, you
have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested
genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes
though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and
glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
So no, yes, you have been called to endure suffering on occasion,
but what you are actually called to is praise and glory and
honor, and that's why you hold fast.
OK, so here's what Paul wants us to know.
Three things. First off, the hope to which he
has called you. And So what is that hope?
What is the hope to which you know yourself summoned by God?
It's a it's a hope that God has called you to.
So what is that confident expectation of future grace that
he has called us to? Well, we would start with the
hope of personally being reconciled to God and eternally
forgiven of sin and the possessor of eternal life,
right? That is the that's the initial
invitation. You have sinned.
God is holy. Your sin requires death in
Christ. Your death has been paid, your
righteousness has been provided, you have mercy, you have
forgiveness and you personally by faith alone are reconciled to
God. Yes, that's the first step of
the hope that he has called us to and or, or in the in the
words of the infomercial. But wait, there's more order
now, and you get also the hope of the utter defeat of your
enemy, the devil, Satan. The New Testament says in
Colossians 215 that's that the Lord Jesus on the cross, not
sometime in the distant future, but on the cross, he disarmed
the principalities and powers, having taken away that the the
laws that the record of debt that stood against us.
Jesus disarmed Satan. Jesus cast Satan down.
He describes that as a past tense reality.
In Luke 1018, I saw Satan fall like lightning, that Satan has
been bound. This is Matthew 12 and
Revelation 20. Matthew 12.
Jesus is showing as he is liberating captives, people who
have been bound by Satan. And the king comes and he says
you're free. And Satan has no power to hold
on to them because he's been bound by the stronger men who
broken bound the strongman and now is pillaging his house.
That's what's mentioned in Revelation 20.
Satan has been disarmed, cast down, bound.
He is unable to stand against the church.
So many Christians think that the church is fighting a losing
battle when it was Jesus who said I will build my church and
the gates of hell will not stand against it.
He is unable, Satan is unable to successfully deceive the
nation's any longer. 2nd Corinthians 4 three and six.
The God of this world is blinding hearts and minds, but
the light of the gospel can come and be seen in the face of Jesus
Christ. The God who in the beginning
spoke light Into Darkness, This day is speaking light.
And so Satan can't stop that. And then lastly, that Satan,
Paul tells the Romans, Satan is soon to be crushed under the
feet of the church, which is the body of Christ.
Romans 16 The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your
feet, he tells the church. So we have been called to a hope
of personally being reconciled to God, the hope of the utter
defeat of our enemy, the devil, the hope of and this is a a hope
that we lose sight of all the time that we have been called to
the hope of bodily perfection of bodily perfection.
We, God help us, we are Gnostic in our understanding of things
that we think spirit and soul good, body bad.
And so we we will sing songs like we just can't wait for the
day when I, when I die in this useless lump of clay, gets put
into the grave and then my soul goes to be with the Lord.
I want you to listen to Paul talking in Romans 8.
He says we ourselves who have the first fruits of the spirit,
we groan inwardly as we waited eagerly for the adoption as
sons, the redemption of our bodies, not of our souls.
We have the first fruits of the Holy Spirit and we groan because
we're in this, this in between where we still have a sin nature
warring against the spirit within us and it's a constant
struggle. And so we groan, but he says we
eagerly await the the adoption of sons, the redemption of our
bodies, and listen to this in this hope we were saved in in
one hope. Well, it's not the hope of that.
Our soul is going to just go and be with the Lord in heaven when
we die, which it does, awaiting the day of the resurrection of
the body. It is in this hope that we are
saved. Christmas means your bodies, not
just your souls, are to be redeemed.
And the ascension means that human nature itself has been
raised and exalted in Christ and is at this moment seated in the
heavens, reigning with God. Human nature.
We, we get this idea all the time that like that somehow we,
we again, we get it from the pagans that this, when the, when
the New Testament talks about the resurrection of Christ, we
pretend like the only thing that raised was his soul, that he
went up as a ghosty into the heavens.
No, in the same way that Adam was the representative of
mankind and when he acted on behalf of mankind, everybody
went with him into the grave. Everybody becomes dust.
Now the new and greater Adam acts on behalf of mankind, and
what happens to him happens to all of humanity, that he is
risen from the dead, we're told as firstfruits.
He ascends into heaven, and humanity itself is seated at the
right hand of the Father, and we have been raised up with him.
So says Ephesians 2. Listen to your betters.
This is a This is from the hymn called See the See the Conqueror
Mount in triumph. Listen to these words and I dare
you. I dare you to pretend like this
is not directly from the New Testament.
There is chapter and verse on every phrase in this paragraph.
Listen, Christ has raised our human nature in the clouds to
God's right hand. There we sit in heavenly places.
There with Him in glory stand Jesus reigns, adored by angels.
Man with God is on the throne. Did you know that?
That man with God is on the throne, and we are with Him,
mighty Lord in thine ascension By faith we behold our own.
It's glorious everything that has happened to Christ has
happened to us and I would just again homework.
I gave you homework a couple weeks ago to read Ephesians one
now read Ephesians 2 and read it all that that you were dead.
He made you alive and we all yes and Amen that like a past tense
reality and he speaks of the same tense that he raised us up
and he seated us with him in the heavenly places.
Your life don't seek the things on the earth, but seek the
things which are above where your life is hidden with God in
Christ. It does not do for us to strip
and to castrate all the manifold hope that is offered to to God's
people in the gospel. Paul wants us to know the hope
to which we've been called. And so we can't cut out all of
those things that actually have power.
We've got to get back to the word and let it dictate to us
what we were able to confidently expect.
We, we had a, a really interesting conversation about
eschatology this Friday. And you know, the, the running
joke of like, well, you're a, you're, you're an
amillennialist, you're a postmillennious, you're a
premillennious. I'm a pan millennials because
it's all going to pan out in the end.
And we just say, well, it doesn't matter.
OK, like, like these things don't matter.
Listen, I do not care what you call yourself as far as your
eschatological position. It doesn't matter.
In the same way, I don't care what you call me, just don't
call me late for dinner. I don't care what eschatology
you ascribe to, but here's what I do care about.
I do care that you don't store a way for future the reality that
God says is present because that is functional rebellion.
It's functional rebellion. Jesus said go make disciples of
all nations. And so we must do that.
We must endeavor to do that and we must do it.
The only way that we're going to do it and stay faithful to it is
with the hope that Christ intends to conquer through his
people. So he wants you to know the hope
to which he has called you. Secondly, the riches of his
glorious inheritance in the Saints.
Now think about this as a as an old through your Old Testament
lens. According to the Old Testament,
what is an inheritance? What is what is that?
Well, it's, it's land that God gave to his people what's given
as a possession. This, this word means that which
is given as a possession to the Saints.
And so in the Old Testament, we typically think land, the land
of Canaan. But I want to, I want to read
you something. We, we that that God promised to
Abraham. This is Romans 413 Again, this
idea we need to know the riches of his glorious inheritance in
the Saints in Romans 413. Listen to these words.
For the promise to Abraham and to his offspring, by the way,
that's why we baptize our babies.
The promise to Abraham and to his offspring.
So it's a promise that went to two people, Abraham and his
offspring that he would be listen to these words, heir of
the world. The promise that Abraham would
be heir of the world did not come through the law, but it
came through the righteousness of faith.
That word for world is not in in Greek.
It's not in gates, which means land, right.
So so we could we could sort of do some gymnastics Jesus with
that text and say, well, what God actually promised Abraham
was just the land of Canaan. But Paul says no, God promised
Abraham the world in you, all the nations of the earth, we'll
be blessed. That word is cosmos, entirety of
the world. And so in the same way that when
God made the world and then created man in his image and put
him in a garden, God gave him a tame Eden and the rest of the
world lordship over the world that he was to go apply in the
same way, right? So you've got a tame walled
garden, and then also the world that's wild and needs to be
fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, subdue it, have dominion
in the same way that that Abraham was given Canaan, and
through Canaan the world, the Father has given Christ the land
of Israel, because it's part of the world.
In Christ God has blessed and is blessing every family, every
nation, every tribe, every people group on the earth.
The Proverbs teach us to measure a King's worth by the number of
his subjects. So again, when it is all said
and done, Christ will have more humans with him than against
him. This is the riches of his
inheritance. Listen to me, brothers and
sisters, He wins it all. Psalm 2 The father says, Oh
actually the son says, I will tell of the decree of the Lord.
The Lord said to me, Ask of me and I will make the nation's
your inheritance ask of me and I will give you the nations as
your inheritance. So did Christ ask for the
nations or not? Did he ask for it and was he
given it? The answer is yes, he is.
This is the riches of his inheritance in the Saints.
Trey Trey pray when when Christ gave his Great Commission, he
gave it to 11 guys. Texas knew nothing of the light
of Christ and yet here we are calling upon him as the Lord.
He is in the process of making this reality.
Thirdly, what what Paul wants us to know is the immeasurable
greatness of his power toward us who believe the immeasurable
greatness of his power toward us who believe.
So, so many of us really think that the power of God is really
not ours. We know he is powerful, of
course, like he's gone, he can do anything.
But we don't know that in Christ God has been has his intent on
pouring his power in and to and through us to the world.
So he says Paul uses this word, the immeasurable greatness of
his power, immeasurable greatness who pair ball on is
the is the Greek who pair who pair ball on.
It means to be able to throw exceedingly much farther than
you need to. So all of the men in the church
get together and we get a 50 LB boulder and we all throw it as
far as we can and we're all within 510 foot of each other.
But whoever's farthest out, we say, man, he's the strongest guy
in the church. And then Christ comes and takes
the same rock and throws it 5000 yards.
That's Hooper ball on. It's so much more powerful than
anything that you need there. We, we worship a God, brothers
and sisters, that has no degree of difficulty.
He can, he can cause grass to grow.
He can cause oceans to calm down.
He can do anything he wants to do.
He has far beyond sufficient strength to do all that he
pleases. And what he pleases to do is to
reconcile people and nations to himself.
This is the greatness of his power toward us who believe.
OK, God's power. Listen to me.
It's not just there. Paul says.
He wants us to know what is the immeasurable greatness of his
power toward us. It's moving towards us.
This is the type of power and then he qualifies it by several
statements. I'm going to read this and then
and then call your attention. He says the immeasurable
greatness of his power toward us who believe according to the
working of His great might, that He worked in Christ when he, and
if you write in your Bible, circle these phrases.
When He raised him from the dead, when He circled this
seated him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above
all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every
name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to
come. And then He circled this, put
all things under his feet, and lastly gave Him His head over
all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him
who fills All in all. First of all, this is this power
that we would know the power of God, but in Christ is moving
towards us. This is power that first of all
raised Christ from the dead. Think about this death is the
period at the end of the sentence of every man's life.
It's coming for you. We we talk about this all the
time of like something's got to kill you, so you might as well
smoke and drink. I mean something is coming for
you. You're going to get it.
And that's the period at the end of all you read the Old
Testament and it's the it's the most the most sobering and
depressing. So and so had this many kids and
he died and he died and he died and he died and he died.
Everybody dies. And that's the period at the end
of every sentence until the power of God said, but not you.
And he raised Jesus from the dead.
And instead of a period at the end of Jesus's life and
ministry, God turns it into a comma and a run on sentence that
never ends. And because of that, you and I
experienced the same thing again.
He is raised as the first fruits from the dead.
And in the hope of the redemption of our bodies, we
were saved. So brothers, Christ put a death
sentence on death itself. It's gone, it's dead, and it has
no sting. And one day He's going to
overturn it all together that we would know the greatness of his
power toward us. And this is power that seated
Christ at the right hand of of God.
This is amazing, right? Jesus comes into the world and
everybody that matters rejected him.
And then God in response, in response to all that says, oh,
that's interesting. Well, I'm going to make him Lord
of everything. Suck on that.
Like I don't care what you think.
I don't care if you vote for him.
I don't care if you're excited about that, if you hate that God
has made him Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified,
that Jesus said in his resurrection, all authority has
been given to me. He has been seated at the right
hand of the majesty on high. Brothers, that is immeasurable
greatness in power. And that power is towards us
that the entirety of the world can say no God, we don't want
that. And God can say, I don't care,
I'm doing it anyway because I have the power and I have the
authority to do that. Paul says this immeasurable
greatness of God's power also put all things under the feet of
Christ. So prior to the cross, prior to
the resurrection, prior to the ascension of Christ, the
accusations of Satan actually had a point.
So we're told him in Revelation, we're given a snapshot of when
Satan was cast down. And before that the text says
that he he accuses the brethren day and night, right?
So and, and, and before the cross and the resurrection and
the ascension of Christ, he had a really great point because he
could hold up the law of God summarized in 10 moral
statements, which are summarized in two moral statements.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and
strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.
And so day and night, every day of my life, Satan could have
stood before Almighty God, who is my judge, and said, God, this
is your standard and this is what he's done.
He deserves to die. And Satan would have been
correct because I've done all those things.
I have not loved the Lord. I have not loved my neighbor as
myself. We were prior to the cross,
resurrection and ascension, we were the rightful prey of death
because we had violated the will and the standard of God.
And we must always have stood silent before the truth of the
accusation that even though God said be perfect as your Father
in heaven is perfect, all of us have to say we can't.
We haven't. We're we're done.
But now Christ disarmed Satan by canceling the record of debt
which stood contrary to us. Satan has been cast down.
He no longer has any accusations or charges that can stick.
They may stick in your mind and in mind because we're weak that
way, that sometimes we think that even though God has
pardoned us, that there's there's lingering sins or
feeling of guilt and shame. Listen to me.
Maybe that's your tender conscience.
Maybe that's the enemy, you're the devil, but that's not true.
When Christ forgives you, he really forgives you.
And so that's not, it's not as though God shares your sort of
vacillation of maybe, maybe you're guilty, or maybe you're
innocent. Christ died for you to justify
you, and he silenced forever the enemy.
They may stick in our minds, but they will never stick in the
mind of our Father because our Father sees before him every
moment of life, the Son who by 1 sacrifice made purification for
sin for all time and for his people.
It's it's, it's just marvelous that no matter what the
accusation is that Christ, your advocate stands with the Father
is seated with the Father saying, I know he did that, but
I died for him and so let him off the hook.
And God says, yes, I will. All authority has now been given
to him. He expressly governs the Word,
the world by His Word and providential lordship, leading
all things to the end that He has prepared for them.
Listen to me, It's a common misnomer.
Satan is called the God of this world.
We we think he is the reigning God of this world and that the
ascension means the Kingdom was put on ice and one day Christ
will come back to rule. But he really has nothing
whatsoever to do with this world today.
No, Christ is Lord of heaven and earth.
When he wants to bring an end to this world, brothers and
sisters, He will ask the permission of precisely no one,
nobody. Right when I want to, when I
want to go to the grocery store, I have to ask permission of the
bank. Like do do I have enough in
there to go to the grocery store?
If I want to buy a house, I could ask permission.
Hey, can I borrow this much money?
If can I eat this thing? Can I do?
Like we are permission people, we have to ask permission.
When Jesus wants to wrap the thing up, he will ask him.
Nobody's finished him because he is absolute Lord.
We are told that he gave him. So the last thing, this
immeasurable greatness of God's power that's toward us that Paul
wants us to know, it's power that raised him from the dead,
that seated him in his right hand, that put all things under
his feet. And lastly, that gave him this
power gives Christ as a gift, as head over all things given to
the church. Brothers and sisters, you have
not been given a cosmic doormat as a savior, the gentle, meek
and mild Christ who just lays down no matter what people want
to do to him. We have been given a Christ who
is the head over all things. Whether all things acknowledge
him yet or not does not matter. He is the head of all things.
And we are told repeatedly he must reign until he has made his
enemies a footstool for his feet.
And he is in process of doing that with with us former enemies
that through conversion have now become his, his glad footstool,
his servants. This type of power, brothers and
sisters in the ascension of Christ, just just believe this
and live like this is the case. This is the power that is
towards you in grace, that is towards you in Christ, because
Christ is seated as our covenant head upon the throne.
So armed with hope and a rich inheritance in the Saints and
with absolute authority, Jesus Christ now summons you, his
people, to his table. This bread is his body broken
for you. This wine is His bloodshed for
the forgiveness of your sin. Christ intended to provide for
your full pardon, and He has accomplished what he what he
intended. This is what He came to do, and
this is what He did, and so trust it.
He is the Lord of heaven and earth.
He is the great friend and lover of our souls.
He is altogether faithful, and He has so worked on our behalf
that there is not a single accusation that can reasonably
stand against us before God. When you sit in that brother,
sister, nothing, there's no accusation.
Who can bring a charge against God's elect when it is God who
justified? Nothing can stand.
So you come to his table. You come clear, free from all
guilt, from all sin and all shame, because this is what
Christ has commanded. Christ ascended, Christ is
reigning. We are with him in the heavenly
places even now at this moment. So come to the Supper of the
Lamb, come, welcome to Jesus Christ and we pray.
Lord Jesus, we thank you for loving us to this degree.
We thank you that you did not just put an end to our sin, but
you also ascended into heaven, have been seated at the right
hand of God, and from that position you live forever to
make intercession for us. You live forever to make good on
your promise to send the Holy Spirit to your people.
Jesus, we are desperate, we are desperate.
We the sometimes the voice of accusation and the voice of our
of our conscience that that still has the sense of remaining
guilt. Sometimes, Lord, those things
are louder than your gospel in our ears.
And so today, Lord, would you in the name of Christ, would you
breakthrough and set us free from our condemnation to know
that Christ is Lord Father that he is seated at your right hand.
He's put an end, He's made an end forever by 1 sacrifice to
our sin, and that He has purified us, washed us free and
clear, and He can present us now here at the table without spot
or blemish or any such thing before the presence of our
Father Holy Spirit. Would you come now?
Would you make this table what it means to be for us?
Would you minister to us here? Take up the bread and take up
the wine, take up your people and our faith?
And would you? Would you give us participation
in Christ today as we come to the table?
But we trust you for these things, and we ask them in
Christ. Amen.