Good morning, good morning. This is a great, this is a great
Sunday. I love that in the first year
that we've been here, there are so many first Sundays of new
things that we get to experience.
And today is one of those days. So I'm I'm pumped to be here and
to celebrate with our grads and to see all of the blood.
They're stacked right there. I don't know if you've come and
checked them out yet, but the blankets are there, they're
waiting, they're ready for you. And so it is, it's a wonderful
day. So welcome, if you are new, if
you're visiting, if you are a guest, I love that you would
show up on a day like today because in so many different
ways. I think you get to see a little
bit about who we are as a church and what is important.
And there's cake. That's always a good day to show
up. It's like the most ice.
I say. It's like the most Presbyterian
thing we do is have big slab cakes at the end of important
Sundays like this. But it is, this is a great day.
And it is a day that we get to pray for and bless and send our
grads off onto their next whatever it is into work into
school. We just love that we get to do
that and we will celebrate communion today.
And right now what we're going to do is if you're brand new to
church, open up the Bible, read for a little bit to pray
together and spend some time reflecting on on Jesus's
teaching. So we are in Luke chapter 6.
And eventually it'll be up on the board behind me here up on
the overheads. But what I want to do is just
kind of slow us down prey. And then read through this these
verses together, verse 43. If you do want to follow along
chapter 6, verse 43 through to the end of the chapter and we'll
get into some of this. But what you need to know if you
are flying in new to where we have been is something called
the sermon on the plane. This is Jesus's teaching about
life inside the Kingdom and these verses wrap up that
teaching. So we've spent now a month
looking at various teachings on what Jesus invites us into and
what he challenges us toward as the church as followers of Jesus
together as a community and here this kind of this wraps it all
up. We are going to get to a point
where he finally says, OK, now go and do you spend enough time
sitting and listening here and now go and kind of get after it
is is how it ends. But let me pray.
I want to read these verses for us, and then we'll work our way
through. God, thanks for your love and
for your grace. Thanks that you're with us, and
we're grateful that you have something for each one of us,
whether we are brand new to the Bible and Jesus, to who you are
and to your teaching, whether we have been around for what might
be 30, forty, 50-60 years and beyond.
God thinks that you are one who continues to reveal these new
things to us that stir our hearts and our minds toward you
and toward action in the world. God, I pray that that's what you
would do today for us as a church, as a community.
Would you remind us what life is all about?
So as we read this, speak to us now.
We need you to do it. Pray these things in Jesus your
strong name, man. So Luke 6 starting at 43, says,
For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree
bear good fruit. For each tree is known by its
fruit. For figs are not gathered from
thornbushes, nor are grapes picked from a Bramble Bush.
The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces
good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil.
For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.
Why do you call me Lord? Lord, and do not and and not do?
Sorry what I tell you, Everyone who comes to me and hears my
words and does them, I will show you what he is like.
He is like a man building a house who dug deep and laid the
foundation on the rock. And when the flood arose, the
stream broke against that house and could not shake it because
it had been well built. But the one who hears and does
not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground
without a foundation. When the stream broke against
it, immediately it fell and the ruin of that house was great.
So we have two images or two analogies, 2 stories to wrap up
Jesus sermon on the plane. So on the one hand, we get this
image of a tree and its fruit. The second image, the house and
its foundation. And really what I want us to
hear and especially for those of us who've been working our way
through all the way through the sermon on the plane and maybe
longer all the way through this Gospel of Luke.
And for those of you who I know been coming out on Wednesday to
Bible study like this serves as the conclusion.
The final point to Jesus is teaching about life inside the
Kingdom of God. Jesus is going to continue to
teach about what life is like outside the Kingdom.
He is going to continue to live it out, to show it, demonstrate
through healings and miracles. He is going to clash with
religious teachers and other people.
All of it is going to continue to unfold what the Kingdom looks
like. But this really wraps up this,
this teaching that we call the sermon on the plane and the
sermon on the plane, What we've been focusing on through this
whole month is living in alignment with God's Kingdom.
What does it look like to live inside of God's Kingdom?
What does it look like to live on the way as you go, aligning
all of the areas of your life with the Kingdom of God, all of
it. Not compartmentalizing, not
leaving some pieces out because I'd rather keep this, you know,
over here and I'd rather keep my church life over here and
looking at together, What does it look like as a whole
integrated life, not disintegrated like we talked
about last week, integrated into the Kingdom of God.
One of the things that we have said from the beginning of this
series is that living inside of alignment with God's Kingdom
will put you at odds with other kingdoms and alternate kings.
And I don't know if you felt that over these last few weeks
that some of the things that Jesus challenges us toward
starts to feel like it impinges or encroaches on other areas,
other kingdoms, other kings, other things that try to
influence your life. God's Kingdom clashes, and it
clashes with our kingdoms, with my Kingdom, like so many times.
Our wants, our desire is what we would rather prioritize and
elevate and what we would even begin to worship is confronted
by God's Kingdom. Mark Sayers, and I've quoted him
before, he puts it like this. He says we can tend to once the
Kingdom, all of the goodness of life inside the Kingdom without
the king. Secularism.
I think our cultural moment, the driving ethos and Canada today
will take that a step further and actually declare that you
are your own king, of your own Kingdom, and that the best thing
you can do is to be true to yourself.
Jesus though says you were made for more then worshipping
yourself and simply living to serve your own passions.
And So what have we seen? We've seen Jesus declare blessed
are you who are upside down, And it's a little confusing.
Poor blessed are you who are poor, who are hungry, who mourn,
who are excluded, who are hated. He says on account of me, on
account of Jesus. And he's challenged us to live a
little bit upside down, to love our enemies and to pray for
those who hate us. To lend without expecting
anything in return, expecting to even be repaid.
To forgive. Not only to forgive, but to give
an extra measure of grace, He says, go further.
Be generous to live so generously, he says, that
actually it can't really be measured accurately anyway.
Live authentically with integrity.
Follow Jesus as the only teacher and master the King of God's
Kingdom. All of that we see wrapped up
today. So we continue reading or read
again. For no good tree bears bad
fruit. No good tree bears bad fruit and
organ does a bad tree bear good fruit.
For each tree is known by its own fruit.
And one of the things that I hope that you begin to do and I
hope we begin to do as a church, and this is not in my manuscript
and this is an in doing this is helpful because you get to see
it. I'm a really visual learner, so
it actually helps me as well, selfishly a little bit.
But one of the things I hope that it encourages you to do is
actually write some of this down inside your own Bible.
Each tree is known by its own fruit.
That's a great one to highlight for figs are not gathered from
thornbushes, nor are grapes picked from a Bramble Bush.
The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces
good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil.
For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.
Now, I don't know if you know this or not, but this is a
grapefruit tree. This this is a grapefruit tree.
And you would know that if you came around to this side.
It says grapefruit on it. That's about the only way you
would be able to tell it's a grapefruit.
You know, it's a grapefruit tree and I understand probably there
are some of you here who might be able to identify this as a
grapefruit tree if you looked closely.
I'm not one of them. I had to double check, but we
got a fig tree outside and a grapefruit tree and all they
listen. I'm glad it says grapefruit
because they could be the same one.
To me. There isn't about the same state
of health as well. It needs two people.
I had two people today. I was bringing this in this
morning ahead of time, like most of you were not here yet.
I had two people say that tree needs prayer.
Two separate people, different ends of the building.
It does. It absolutely does.
It is not bearing fruit. Not only is it not bearing bad
fruit, it's just not bearing fruit, period.
Which, you know, yeah, part of the point.
But here's the thing. This could be, I could tell you
this is an orange tree or a lemon tree.
I could tell you it's an orange or lemon tree.
And probably there's very little way for you to tell right now
because it's not bearing any fruit.
And hopefully eventually one day, if it's healthy and we ever
get out of this perpetual kind of like never, you know, never
spring, only fall kind of weather it might get enough sun
to begin to grow and eventually it'll bear fruit.
This is a great fruit tree and we will know that when it bears
grapefruit. I can't turn it into something
that it's not. It will bear fruit or it won't
bear fruit, that's for sure, based on its health and how well
we take care of it and how much sun he gets.
But it's only ever, at best, gonna produce grapefruits.
That's all it will produce. Don't get me started on broccoli
and cauliflower and Brussels sprouts and kale and cabbage,
because apparently they're all somehow the same plant.
We're not gonna talk about that. You get the point.
A fig won't bear the fruit of a grapefruit tree.
It isn't going to, like, spontaneously change into
something that it isn't. It's not going to just
miraculously change. Equally.
Like no matter how hard I try and water it and tend for it and
care for it and give it food, like there's no amount of
selective breeding or training or watering or magic plant food
that I can put onto this tree to turn it into something that it's
not, to make it bear fruit that it is not designed to bear.
And Jesus says for each tree is known by its own fruit, each
tree is known by its own fruit. The fruit, Jesus says, betrays
the tree. Good or bad, healthy or rotten,
edible or poisonous, little or big, the fruit allows you to
know. The tree and what you produce
allows you to clearly see and know who and what you are, the
state of your heart. Now, I don't know about you, but
I immediately read these lines and I begin asking questions.
And they're good questions, but they can be a little bit
misleading at points. What fruit am I bearing?
How do I bear good fruit and and what is a good tree and what is
bad fruit anyways? What does it mean to bear bad
fruit and how about good fruit? What does that look like and how
do I see it in my own life? Where do I see it?
How can I know I'm producing good fruit and not bad fruit?
Am I good or am I bad? Where is there sin in my life?
How can I overcome it? How can I stop doing the thing
that I no longer want to do but somehow always find myself
returning to? And I think what ends up
happening is that at best we think that the input determines
the output. Like if I maybe if I read my
Bible enough, like is that is that good fruit?
If I go to church enough, if I pray enough times or the right
words in the right way at the right time, if I listen to only
good music, how? If I only watch good movies and
TV shows like all that I consume, if everything that I
input into my life is good, then then maybe I will be good.
Also. If I consume enough good things,
surely then I eventually will be like those things.
I will be good. And yes, what you put in
matters. What you input into your life
matters. Anybody who's accidentally put
diesel into a gasoline vehicle will tell you that it matters.
The input matters, but the problem I think that we can have
and I, I think we, Christian or not, inside the church,
wrestling with faith, doubt, wondering about any of it, all
of it, all of us, is that we can put all our emphasis on the
fruit, good or bad, Everything becomes about the fruit.
Am I producing good fruit or am I producing bad fruit?
How do I stop the bad fruit? How do I focus on it enough to
get it out of my life? And how do I just begin doing
good things? And maybe even as I'm going to
take that bad thing and I will stop and I'm going to replace it
with a good thing and I go look, great things to think about and
do. But the problem with it, Jesus
says, I think, is this. You're only focusing still on
external things, the good and the bad that you do, and not
getting at the heart of who you really are.
The problem when we emphasize the fruit is that we never get
to the deeper heart work that Jesus wants to do in our lives.
All our energy becomes focused on what is external.
And Jesus says no. Actually, the problem is
internal. It's inside, and no amount of
outside work is going to transform what is going on
inside your heart and your mind and your soul.
You can call it behavior modification or like Country
Club, Christianity or legalism. Some people could just call it
religion. Dallas Willard calls it the
Gospel of Sin management, right? How can I manage my sin enough
to feel good about who I am? The gospel is reduced to only
stopping me from sinning. That's the gospel of sin
management. When the gospel, when who Jesus
is, the cross, death, resurrection, all of it is only
ever about stopping you from doing what you ought not to do.
And when it becomes that, it falls so short of explaining all
of life inside the Kingdom. Because again, humanity's
problem is not external, it's internal.
No amount of input is going to change what is inside to you,
who you are. That requires a change of heart.
Crispy, bad fruit and a bad fruit.
Anyways, we'll get there. Just as good as out of the good
treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of
his evil treasure produces evil. This word is is fantastic.
This is in Greek is thesaurus. It's the same word that we use
for a thesaurus because it is a treasury of words.
It is a storehouse of words and what Jesus really is saying is
think treasury, think storehouse.
Think of the the place you store away what is most important.
I don't know who thought words were most important, but maybe
they are. It's the the place where you
keep your treasure. What is most important to you?
And so I think one of the questions that you need to ask
of yourself and that I need to ask of myself and even for us as
a church, is, is Christianity just a behavior modification
program for you? Is it just about making you a
better person or is it something that you are learning to
treasure? Is Jesus someone who just simply
makes you a better person and makes you feel better about who
you are and what one of my profs and and Connie's props and
seminary called moralistic therapeutic deism.
This idea that it just, it makes Christianity makes you a better
person, it makes you moral, it makes you do good so you can
feel good. It's therapeutic.
It makes you feel good about yourself.
D As in belief in God, Is Christianity something that you
come to because you realize deep inside of who you are that that
there are some things that you're wrestling out and there
are some pieces that you are actually feeling kind of guilty
about and maybe even a little ashamed of.
You know that there's something that you need fixed.
You come to Jesus and and you feel a little better about
yourself on on Sunday and then go back and do the same thing on
Monday. That's moralistic therapeutic
deism. I'm going to feel good about
myself so I can continue doing the things I know I shouldn't
do. Or have you learned to treasure
Jesus and to treasure life inside the Kingdom because it is
valuable and life giving, not just for you?
But through you, for others around you, is it something that
you have embraced? Has your heart, your thoughts,
your feelings, your emotions to all of it?
Has it been impacted by who Jesus is and by the life that He
invites you to live? It's a treasure of this person's
heart. So again, that word heart is not
just like the thump, thump, thump keep you alive, pump blood
through your body kind of heart. This is all of your life.
This is your thoughts, your emotions, your feelings, your
desire, your will, all of it. The invitation to life inside
the Kingdom is to allow Jesus to capture all of it.
All of your thoughts, all of your feelings, your emotions,
your desire, everything about who you are, the centre of your
being, your core, your soul, your spirit, all of these words
that we've developed to try to capture who God has created you,
human being to be. Has God gotten ahold of it all?
And have you learned? Are you learning to treasure
that God has gotten ahold of it all.
In another conversation that Jesus has, he actually has with
a rich young man that says this rich man comes to Jesus and he
calls Jesus a good teacher. And Jesus's response is is
great. He says, why do you call me
good? No one is good except God alone.
No one is good. And then Jesus says, listen,
like this this guy comes, he said, what must I do to inherit
eternal life? This is this is the question
that this man comes to Jesus with Jesus answers, says, well,
listen, you know the the commandments, so you know the
committee, do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal,
do not bear false witness. Don't defraud on your father and
mother. And then the rich man who turns
to Jesus says, great, check, check, check, check, check.
I've done them all, I've accomplished everything it says.
What else must I do? Is there something that I still
lack? Feel pretty good about himself
at this moment. And Jesus looks at him and he
says, yeah, you, you're missing out on one thing.
He says go and sell all that you have and give to the poor.
And then he says you will have treasure in heaven, Come follow
me. That's the invitation that Jesus
gives to this rich man. And the guy goes away sad,
actually says sorrowful, like stricken with grief because he
had a lot of things. And we don't hear again from
this guy. We don't know what happens to
him. Does he sell everything?
Does he not? We don't know.
But he goes away sad. Jesus doesn't.
He's not giving him another box to check.
He's not saying literally just listen, go.
I mean, I think he is literally saying go and sell everything.
He's not saying just go and sell everything and then check you've
checked the box. Now he says go sell everything,
give it away, abandon all and come follow me.
So this guy, he knows the commandments, he knows the
external fruit, right? He he knows what he ought to do,
but Jesus says sell all that you have treasure the things of
heaven and come and follow me and the rich guy, I think he
goes away sad, not because he had too much stuff to sell, but
because he wanted that I said that easy answer.
He wanted Jesus to tell him that final check box.
He's like, once you get this, you're in check everything go
back to living your life the way you want.
Jesus says, listen, no amount of good input or good output is
going to change your heart. Only Jesus can change your
heart. He says essentially this, this
rich young man, your heart is not good.
You don't treasure the things that I treasure.
You don't treasure the things of the Kingdom.
Only Jesus can change what's going on inside your life.
And the question I think that we need to ask ourselves is, are
we, Am I willing to leave everything behind and follow
Jesus because I am learning to love him and treasure life
inside the Kingdom? Not because it makes me a better
person. Not because your spouse drag you
to church. Not because of what you can
gain. Not so that you can feel better
about yourself and the decisions that you make.
Find forgiveness, but then continue to do the same things
over and over again because because you have been caught,
your heart has been captured by who Jesus is in Psalm 1.
And we began this series, this short study on the sermon on the
plane, by reading from Psalm 1. Psalm One says this, Blessed is
the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in
the way that sinners take, or sit in the company of mockers,
but whose delight is in the law of the Lord.
Do you delight in who God is and life inside the Kingdom, who
meditates on his latte and night?
That person, and this is what I want you to see, is like a tree
planted by streams of water. This word planted actually means
transplanted, and we've looked at this word before.
It's not just that this tree luckily landed beside the stream
of flowing water. This is a tree that has been
uprooted from the soil, the rock, the dirt, the muck, the
stuff of life that's preventing it to live, and has been
rerouted, repotted, transplanted, set down
intentionally beside the source of life, the streams of water.
That tree is going to yield its fruit in season, and its leaf is
not going to wither. And whatever it does, it's going
to prosper. And to your right says that's
the work that God needs to do in your life.
That's the work that needs to happen inside of your heart and
your soul and your mind, all of who you are.
You need to be transplanted, uprooted, and then placed down
beside the source of life, inside of life in the Kingdom
with Jesus says no amount of hard work, no amount of good is
going to change the fact that grapes don't grow on
thornbushes. You won't find oranges on
hostas. And to your right says you need
a complete change of heart. And that's the work that God
needs to do in your life and in my life to transplant, pick you
up, take you out of the rock and place you down away from the
unworkable dead soil and into next to flowing streams of
water. Jesus elsewhere.
And I realize now we're like dangerously close to mixing
metaphors in another place. Puts it like this.
He says abide in me. This is Jesus's invitation.
Abide in me and allow me to abide in you.
As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in
the vine, neither can you unless you abide in Me.
I am the vine, you are the branches.
Whoever abides in me and I in Him, He is the one who bears
much fruit. Apart from me, Jesus says, you
can do nothing. Abide, Jesus says in me, rest
in, enjoy, celebrate, drink deeply from the well that is
Jesus's presence and you will bear good fruit.
To wrap up, Jesus says, why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do
not do what I tell you? Everyone who comes to me and
hears my words here, God hears my words and does them.
I will show you what he is like. He is like a man building a
house who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock, and when
a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not
shake it because it had been well built.
But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who
built a house on the ground without a foundation.
When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the
ruin of that house was great. Great was the ruin of their
translations. Right?
When Connie and I were first married, we lived in Beaverton,
ON. Does anybody know where
Beaverton ON is? A couple of you think Yes, right
on. More specifically, we lived in
Lagoon City. Does anybody know where Lagoon
City is? Yes, OK, a couple right on
Lagoon City. That should raise alarm bells
because I'm not sure if you are aware of this or not, but
Ontario is not known for its lush, calm, soothing lagoons.
Not Lagoon City is a product of a hopefully bygone era where we
thought it would be great to construct houses on top of Lake
Ontario. Like not beside on top of on
stilts. Some of them Lake Ontario.
I don't think they do that anymore.
You can think Florida, but not alright.
So one day we were living in this house.
We're renting it and we were there for like we actually had
the house less than your room Beaverton for a year.
So we were just married. It was our first year of
marriage. We hear this loud pop crack,
flash fizz like that was the sound and then the power went
out. That was it gone dark power was
out this loud crack, pop, fizz, bang this like what do you do?
So like I checked all the things that you're supposed to do
planned outage. No, are there any storms?
Look outside. No, no storms go down to the
panel. Nothing was blown Great.
That's not going to help at all. So couldn't reset any Breakers.
Nothing like nothing was wrong, except everything was wrong.
Finally, I went outside and like, I'm going to call the
landlord because I, I, I don't know what else to do, can't fix
this and the power company won't deal with me because I don't own
the place we're renting it. And so I walk outside and I kid
you not, you could see that the house had sunk and the main
power line that fed the house came through.
The ground had ripped because the house had sunk enough
because it was built on top of Lake Ontario.
And so finally the like landlord is like, OK, I'll call the cut
power company and then you can call the power company.
I was on the phone finally with the power company.
They would talk to me. And the craziest thing I've got
like the landlord on the phone, I've got the power company on
the phone. I've got the property manager on
the phone and like, Oh, yeah, that happens.
Like, this was a known problem in Lagoon City.
The houses are just slowly sinking into the lake.
And that's something we all have to deal with eventually.
Like, I didn't realize that they knew I wanted to read them.
Haven't you heard about the one who doesn't do the thing and
builds the house on the ground with no foundation?
And the great is the ruin of that house.
Like that's what it felt like. Jesus says, why do you call me
Lord? Lord, whenever something's
repeated in the Bible, you need to pay attention to it.
No exclamation marks, OK, in the Bible.
So if things are repeated, just sit up a little bit.
Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do what I tell you.
This is Jesus's final. This is like last thing He wants
you to hear from this teaching, from this sermon on the plane.
You have now heard it. Jesus says you've heard it.
You can't say you haven't. Are you going to listen?
Are you gonna embrace? Are you gonna absorb?
Are you going to do? Will it change the way you live,
or will you hear it and listen and continue to do what you want
to do? Action matters to Jesus.
It does. The way you live matters to
Jesus. The way we live as a community,
as a church, matters to Jesus, but the order of it matters more
the way you live and follow. Yes, absolutely.
This is Jesus's invitation. He says Come, follow me.
Learn the way of the Kingdom. Allow Jesus to transform your
heart. Learn what it looks like to
treasure the things of the Kingdom.
Learn what a new posture might be like toward others.
And then Jesus eventually does say go do the things, do the
work of the Kingdom, allow it to change the way you live.
It's OK to live differently because of the teaching of Jesus
that you've encountered, he says.
Carry the culture of the Kingdom with you as you go, But go,
there's a time, there's a season.
Everybody's like you just, you know, your kids, they grow up.
This is so they tell me they're growing up fast.
Ours are growing fast. And then, you know, eventually
there's like, there's a moment where you're like, go, go and
live your life. You've learned the things.
I'll be here, but it's time for you to actually start changing
the way you live. The questions you says isn't of
whether or not there's gonna be storms in life or what those
storms are going to be or how high does the flood rise?
Or is it, you know, because of rain?
Or is it a dam that bursts? Like, am I ready for the storm?
Can I survive three days with no power?
Or how about like a week of food, like, you know, have stuff
stored away. The House doesn't really care
what causes the storm, but the storm will come.
Life will happen. Rain, flash flood, dam bursts.
The result is the same Jesus as if the foundation is bad if
you've heard and not done. The result is the same.
If the foundation is good, if you've heard and allowed it to
transform your life and your heart and your mind and your
soul, all of it, and then live differently because of it, you
are building a house. You're building a life, and like
students graduate in grade 12, you might not have had it all
figured out yet. You're not supposed to have it
all figured out yet, but you're building towards something.
All of us are. And one day we're going to face
a flood. One day you'll leave a legacy.
One day you'll no longer be here.
Maybe your kids, your grandkids will.
One day it'll show whether you've built on a foundation or
on no foundation. And so the choice you have is to
Orient it all, all of it, all of life around who Jesus is.
Not because it's going to prevent storms, not because I
can guarantee you that life from here on out, like it's going to
be absolutely perfect all the way through.
It won't be, but because you love Jesus and your heart's been
captured by who He is, and you want to live your life aligned
with His Kingdom, and you want to live your life toward others
in the ways of the Kingdom, generously, with love and
kindness and compassion. Grace overflowing.
Let's pray. God thanks for your love and for
your grace and things that you do.
Invite us to these places of surrender, these places of
decision, these places where we do need to think, probably for
longer than just a moment, about how we are choosing to live our
lives. And so, yeah, I do pray that for
each of us here, you would allow us to do that.
I pray that you would remind us out of your love and generosity,
your graciousness toward us. I pray that you would remind us
of who you are and whose we are, that we belong to you.
I pray that you would remind us that we're deeply loved and from
that place too. God, I pray that you would
convict us and challenge us and capture our hearts and our
minds. Yeah.
For the person here who's been wrestling with who you are and
life inside the Kingdom or not, with faith and doubt, with a
desire to believe or a desire not to believe, I do pray that
you would do the work that only you can do, which is to capture
our hearts. Speak to us, have revealed to us
the fact that we need you and remind us that when we come,
you're waiting. God, as we turn to celebrate
communion in real, tangible, practical ways, taste and see,
would you allow us to know your goodness and your grace today?
In Jesus name I pray. Oh man.