Peak Experiences Recap

Okay, listen, let me just take you back in the day. For some of you who are of a certain age, some of those clips were from a previous century. But in the old days, when you had to, like you heard previously on, you had to sit there through it. Because it's like, okay, they're just going to tell me, and now you don't have to. Now you can go to that skip the recap button, and it's like, I don't need any of that. Let's get to what's new. Except sometimes we should go through the recap. Now there's all sorts of reasons why. Let me just give you one as we're kind of looking at what we're doing here. We're going to begin this new second part of a series called Peak Experiences, which means there was a first part of this series. And some of us weren't here for any of the first part, because you joined us maybe in the last few weeks, last few months, and you're like, man, I don't know any of that. Well, it might be good for you to know a little bit of the foundation of kind of where we're going. Some of you were here, but you missed a few episodes. And so like, for one, you could go back and check those out online if you want. But there's also another obvious reason why it might be good for us to do a little recap today of part one before we jump into part two. It's because we forget. One of the core teachings, one of the core commands in the Torah is remember, remember. I mean, you see it all the way back in Exodus. Remember the day in which you came out from Egypt. Again and again, God is saying, remember me. Remember what I did for you. Remember the Sabbath. Remember, remember. Now in the Hebrew, that word remember is zakir. Every time you hear me here, you say zakir, zakir, zakir.

It means to remember. And if we don't remember, we. That was the easy one. Try it again. If we don't remember, we, we forget, we forget, and we forget, we forget God's in charge. We forget that Jesus is King. We forget so much of what we have in common. We forget that he's taking this somewhere. We forget that he sees us. We forget a lot of things, but you know, we forget. Like we forget. Anybody here ever, go ahead, just mass confession, Grant's Trail, Mid Rivers, Fenton, those of you who are joining us online and in overflow, would you just one more time, like you ever forgotten where you parked your car? It's hard to admit, isn't it? Like you're walking through the parking lot and it's like, yep, it's not this row, but I'm going to act like it's this row. And then, you know, we just do that. Meanwhile, we're trying to, we're just trying to find it. So there's a guy, this is a true story, 1997 in Frankfurt, Germany, forgot where he parked his car. Well, actually what he did was he reported it stolen because he went back to the spot and it wasn't there. So he reports it stolen, only it wasn't stolen. Now fast forward 20 years later, there is a parking garage in an industrial, old industrial building in Frankfurt that's about to be demolished. And they got the whole thing cleared out. But for the life of them, they don't know who owns that car. They do a little bit of research. They find this guy's daughter and his daughter and he come to the place.

They show him the car and he goes, oh yeah, that's where I left it. Now I hope that's never happened to you, but sometimes it's not even big things. Sometimes we forget little things. Anybody here ever forgotten where you put this? Yeah, you know, there are studies about this. They have observed people who freak out about forgetting where they put their phone while they're holding the phone and get this. There are some observations of people who start calling their phone to find where it is on the phone they're looking for. Now don't tell me if you've ever done that. Okay. Just don't make eye contact with me now. I'm just saying we forget and the Lord knows we forget. And it is good to remind ourselves of the truth of God, his goodness, his story, all the things. Let's pray and we're going to start our recap. Heavenly father, we come before you now and as always, we are opening your word and trusting that you will speak to us. As always, I am admitting in this church that you have so richly blessed, that there are so many stories, so many ideas, so many challenges, so many surprises, so many victories, so much celebration. And at times so many places of heartache, Lord, we're all here together and you are so good. Your love endures forever. We're asking you now to speak to us today. of things that we might have forgotten, show us things that we've never heard, but Lord, prepare our hearts for where you are leading us this winter and this spring. We're asking you now to do this in the name of Jesus

for your glory. Amen. Now, you won't remember, those of you who were here, but this is the way we started the whole series, like, months ago. So now, does anybody remember, does anybody care how we, some of you couldn't care less, right? So, yeah, oh, yeah, where's the drummer when I need him? That would have been a good rim shot. We started all of this by asking you what your favorite mountain is, or maybe the mountain that you still want to see. Y'all remember that? Anybody have a mountain that you're like, ooh, it's my favorite mountain, that's the one I wanna see, or that's the one I have seen? Some of you are like, I won't go to mountains unless it's warm. I'll go to a mountain if it has a beach on it. I know the way some of you are. But others of you, is there anybody here, anybody got like a favorite mountain that you're, yeah? Mount Rainier, it's a good one. You fly into Seattle and you can kinda see that on a clear day, whenever it's clear, and you're like, whew, boy, that just sticks out, doesn't it? Anybody else got one? Say it again. Kilimanjaro, okay, where are you?

Yes, Lord, I hear you, but no, wait, oh, right here, okay, all right. So you've seen it, or you wanna see it? Yeah, okay. Anybody else? Mount Everest? Vail, nothing wrong with that. Yeah, say, where? The Pitons, yeah, oh, wow, okay. So you guys have got, and I know at the site, you're coming up with a variety of answers. You know what my favorite mountain is? Thanks for asking. This is the mountain I still wanna see. I'm gonna start the way we started the series. Revelation chapter 21. So he took me, this is the apostle John trying to describe a vision that he had that then becomes what we call the book of Revelation. So this angel took me in the spirit to a great high mountain, and he showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, it shone with the glory of God and sparkled like a precious stone. Now, this is the end of the Bible. We've studied this before. We'll come back to this again, but there's all this imagery that John uses here to describe what he's being allowed to see, and throughout, he calls one the Lamb of God,

and in places, he calls him the Lion of Judah. He calls him the Root of David. That means he's a descendant of David. He is the root of David. That means he's a descendant of David. He is the fulfillment of prophecy. He calls him the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, and I will just tell you, his name is Jesus, and it's real clear that his name is Jesus, and at the end of the story, what we see and what John tells us in this chapter is that there will come a day when my King Jesus defeats death and evil and suffering forever, and it says right here, and he will wipe away all tears, and I don't know how this works, but he says there will be no more crying. I can't even imagine that, but that's the mountain I wanna see, and that's where we're headed. Now, you're gonna have to stick with us through the whole part two, but that's where we will end things. In the meantime, we're gonna traverse through some mountains. Last time, it was the Old Testament. This time, it's the New Testament, and we're gonna do this together, and we're going to see this God who keeps inviting us to trust him along the way, and yes, these stories will take place on mountains. Now, let's just kinda, in the middle of the recap,

let's just give a little bit of some of the, some of the foundational things that we wanna talk about. You see, if you look at ancient civilizations, ancient cultures, all throughout history, there's a fascination with mountains. Now, I think I can understand why, because they are just, they're just so different, and people would think that this must be where heaven and earth meets because it looks like those odd, strange, majestic pieces of land are touching the sky, and so people began to believe that this is where the divine lives. This is where you meet the divine. This is where the eternal, this is how you get close to it, and in fact, you see people building temples on tops of mountains. If you ever go to Athens, you will see the temples are in the high spot overlooking the rest of the city. Sometimes, they try to replicate the mountains, so you look at the ziggurats of ancient Babylon. You look at the Mayan temples, look at the pyramids, but at the core of it all is this idea that this is the place where heaven and earth meet. Now again, this is throughout all civilizations, there must be some kind of a universal longing here that something happens here and it doesn't surprise me that God uses mountains, the one true God uses mountains to speak to people about this longing. And we've seen some mountains in this part one, haven't we? I mean, just as a bit of a review, if you look at this, we started like Mount Sinai for instance, which is in the Arabian Peninsula.

This is the story of Moses, later it's called Mount Horeb and the prophet Elijah goes there, but then we get up a little bit further north and you begin to see Mount Moriah and Mount Zion. There was a powerful story of Mount Nebo and Legacy, Mount Carmel that was the big confrontation with the, that the prophet had with the, with the false prophets of Baal. So we begin to look at all of these mountains and along the way, what we see is that God is inviting people to trust him. These are moments of real decision. These are moments when things begin to happen and it became personal for us. If you weren't here for part one, please understand this was not a geography lesson. Every week we came across an ancient story and then we walked away going, wow, God, you're still calling me through that old, old story because we have this longing that has always been there. And it all really and truthfully begins with these words. In the beginning, God, Elohim, powerful word for God, majestic, powerful God. In the beginning, Elohim created the heavens and the earth. It's a Hebrew way of saying God created everything. This is the beginning of everything. So the writer of these words, and if tradition tells us that it was Moses, then the first audience is, it's a group of people who are just coming out of slavery. They're just coming out of a land of many gods in, uh, in, in Egypt and they're heading to a land of many so-called gods. And it's right here where he is saying, Hey, I want you to know the one true God who created you. I want you to know your origin story, but get this, it's our origin story. This is the beginning of everything. If you want to understand where we're going, then we have to start at the beginning. And let me say one more time, this is not a story. When you read Genesis of how and when we're reaching into the undateable past, there are Bible loving Jesus following people who disagree on the how and the when, but we got to agree

on the who and the why. You see, when we look at this, part of what we begin to see is that, is that remember that audience? Remember that first audience? They're not thinking scientifically. They don't, they don't care about haplogroups and DNA sequencing and mitochondrial Eve and the Cambrian explosion and the fossil record. Now if that made your heart go pitter patter and you want to talk to somebody about that, we'll point you to some people that you can have those conversations with. For the rest of us, I want you to understand the point of this is relationship. This whole first part of Genesis is written in what scholars call exalted prose. It's like a love song. You see the point of this is love. The whole point, God did all of this, not out of need, not out of loneliness, not out of selfishness. He didn't even do this out of boredom. God doesn't need anything. God did this out of love and the pinnacle of creation is found in verse 27 of the first chapter of your Bible. So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God. He created them male and female. He created them. I want you to just look around real quickly. It'll be awkward, but just look around at two or three people. Just look at them. Just give them the old. How do you do? Just go ahead and look at them. Everybody that you look at in this room, in your rooms, everybody that you come in contact with today, tomorrow, everybody that you see or hear, you need to listen to me.

They are made in the image of God Almighty. That means life has inherent value. If you want to understand how and why part of what we do, what we do around here, life matters. We are for life. As the old preachers used to say, from the womb to the tomb, we are for life. God has called us to something, and we as image bearers are to care for the creation. We're to be good stewards of it, but we are to bring glory to him by the way we love him and the way we love each other. There is a young woman, an author, whose dad was a well-known African-American Baptist pastor who just passed in recent months, but she writes, people are made in the image of God. to stand on equal footing alongside each other before the God of heaven. Now let me just, we're made in the image of God, but we're made to stand alongside each other, like in front of the sovereign God. So as she goes on to say, we're made to worship this God, we're made to kneel down and bow before this God, but we do this together. You know why? Because part of bearing the image of God means that you have been given this, it's impossible to fully describe, you have been given a capacity to engage the eternal God who created all of this. And that makes you different from any other creature on the planet. You are made in the image of God. And so as we begin to understand this,

as we begin to go through this, I just want you to understand, this is what we have in common. Whatever we disagree about, this we have in common, we are made in the image of God, and he loves us, and he is calling us to himself and the very minute that we forget that, we are on a road to destruction and division, and it is not the way of God, he is calling us to himself. How can I say that? Because when you get to the end of the Bible, what we see is that there will be people worshiping Jesus from every tribe, tongue, and nation. That's the promise. That's where all of this is heading. But y'all, I need you to hear me now. Some of you are afraid you're encouraging me, so that's okay. I just need you to hear me, that's the plan. I believe that's where he's taking us. But I need you to understand something, too. For us to even talk about how we get there, we gotta talk about not just our creation, not just that we're made in the image of God, we gotta talk about our rebellion, and then we gotta talk about our redemption, because that's really the only way we get to our hope. You see, yes, I believe we are made to stand alongside each other and worship the one true God, but I think we stand on level ground at another place, too.

It's at the foot of the cross. If you don't hear anything else I said, hear this. Each of us need Jesus. And so at this point, you're going, Greg, seems like you took a detour there. How are you gonna get from Genesis to the cross? And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. Now, he put woman there as well. But it's a garden of delight. I mean, that's what Eden is. Now, a couple of things. Eden, that's what it means. It means delight, okay? So a couple of things. It's not the whole world. It's not this prim and proper English garden. Don't think of it as a highly manicured garden. You know, it's got all of the edging, and you know, Adam and Eve are sitting there on some nice little white bench, and they're in Eden, and it's like, Evie, could you get me a crumpet, please? That's not Eden. I want you to think of Eden in its initial phases as lush and full and vibrant and even raw. It's like, whew, it's just full of life. But God created this place as a sanctuary for them. It isn't the whole world. It is a sanctuary for them, and it is a place where he would dwell with humanity.

Now, God doesn't need a place to crash, but God created this as a place out of love. I remember that. This is out of love. Now, another side question that we dealt with. Where is Eden? Altogether now? We don't know. We don't know. It's a great question to ask. Some people will look at a verse in Genesis where it says in chapter two, a river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. Now, there are four rivers that are named. Two of them we know. Two of them we know nothing about. But the two that we know are the Tigris and the Euphrates, and so we go, oh, oh, well, I know where that is. That's like in modern-day Iraq, and so it dumps into the Persian Gulf. I'll bet you that's where Eden is. Some people think that. There are other people who will look at a place like Ezekiel chapter 28, where in the same breath, in the same sentence, someone says that they were in Eden and on the holy mountain of God, and they start to go, hmm, so is Eden on a mountain? Now, there are thoughtful theologians

like Greg Beal and Desmond Alexander who will take that and go, yeah, that's exactly what that means. I would just say go back to Genesis, because what you see in Genesis is that there's a water that flows, and it begins to feed the rest of the world. Water flows downhill. As long as we're going there, where are the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers? They're up in the mountains of eastern Turkey. Is that where the garden is? I don't know. We really don't know, but it makes sense to me that we talk about Eden as being a kind of mountain, whether it's literal. or kind of a theological thing that we're talking about. Because again, remember, it's the place where heaven and earth meet in some ways, and so Eden is this place where humanity dwells with God, and more importantly, God dwells with them. Now if you keep reading, one of the things you'll see is that on the seventh day, God rests, right? We talk about that, and Ben gave us just a beautiful, just a reminder of the importance of Sabbath, but I want you to now think about it from God's perspective. God didn't take a day off because he was tired. God abided with these people that he loves.

God abides with him, God lives with him. I could even show you, we won't now, but I could even show you connections between the Garden of Eden and the temple. This is God dwelling with people. Our plan all along was that we were supposed to take Eden, to learn from him, to draw goodness out of Eden, and then to extend Eden to the edges of the earth. We were to do this, this was the plan, and God's big takeaway was just trust me, trust that my way is best, just keep looking to me, keep learning from me, and this is the way it will go. Trust me, except our first parents didn't. Now again, we can talk about how we get to that part of the story, and there are several ways that you can get to it, but I believe that there was a moment when our first parents said thanks, but no thanks. You see, if you are going to love, you need to have the freedom to not love, because you can't make someone love you. Are you tracking? You see, I can command you to love me, but that doesn't make you love me. It's still your choice. Am I gonna do this or not? God gives us the freedom to accept him or to reject him, to love him or to not love him, but I wanna say one more time,

let's say this very clearly, God loves you. The story of Genesis is the story of love. Later in the Old Testament in Zephaniah three, it says that God exalts over you with singing. You ever seen a new parent just singing over a baby? That's how much God loves you. That explains the heartache that now happens because they choose to rebel. They choose to say, I don't trust God. I think he's holding out on me. I'll define what good and evil is. It'll be my truth. That's our phrase today, right? Yeah, you have your truth, I have my truth. It'll be my truth, and so they believe the lies of the evil one, and I want you to know that we believe in the presence and the reality of evil. Evil entered the story to divide and destroy, because that's what he does. By the way, wait till you get a load of next week, because next week we are going to talk about the epic battle between light and dark, between Jesus and Satan. We think this is real. We're gonna talk about this, but in that moment, they say, no, we'll do what we do, and God says, I told you there would be consequences, and now there are, and he banishes them from the sanctuary, this garden that he had made for them. I mean, the truth is, they're going to die now,

and spiritually, it had begun, this separation between them and God. It's like the size and the shape, I was telling people at our financial foundations class this past Monday, that divide between us and God is like the size and the shape of our sin, and that's for each of us. You see, Tolkien said that we all ache for Eden. I mean, we're out. We were made for this. God wanted this for us, and we're out, but even in that moment of consequence, we've found out that even in that moment, God gives us hope. Even in that moment where he said, I told you this was gonna happen, God says, there will come a day when one is born who will crush the head of evil, so even in that heartache, God says, I love you, and I'm giving you hope, so that was really week one. Now, we're not gonna do that with all of the weeks. Don't worry, but that was really week one. It was this idea of a God who is not to be trifled with, but a God who loves, and it's a love that does not give up. Now, that catapulted us into a whole bunch of other stories. Different mountains. I wanna show you one thing on one mountain, but first, let's take a little breather for just a second, and what I'd love for you to do is to tell somebody, just talk to some people around you.

Like, what was the last gift that you received, maybe you gave, the last gift that you gave, that required thought and planning? You ever gotten one of those gifts where it's like, oh, you've been planning this for a while, or maybe you're the one who planned the gift for a while. What was the last one of those? Go ahead, it may take a second, but talk to each other. We'll come back in just a second. Okay, all right, Sites, if you've got something and you want to shoot it to Ben or to Anthony, I'd love to hear from you. Just anybody got a great story of either it's a gift that you planned out or it's a gift that was planned out and given to you. Anybody got one? Yes, sir. My wife went to all my friends, family, and everything else one year and had them give me a word that they thought about me, and then she presented me with a plaque that had all the words. Okay, so let me tell everybody this. Your wife went to all of your friends and said, give me hundreds, 150 friends. Well, look at you. That's awesome. Yeah, I got it. That's awesome. So she went to 150 people, give me one word that describes my husband, and then she took that and actually made something artistic and gave it to you that has all of those words on it. There you go. Wow. That took some time, and it took some planning.

Okay, anybody else? Let me see if I get people over here. Okay, yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. I thought somebody was going to give us something. Yes, ma'am. So when my husband died, before he died, he took my son and bought me a necklace so that on the anniversary of his death, which was Valentine's Day, they could give me a necklace from my husband. Oh, wow. He wrote a note saying how much he loved me. Okay. All right, stop. Just stop. Her husband, before he died, took their son out, bought her a necklace so that it could be given to her on Valentine's Day, which turned out to be the day that he died, and so the anniversary of that with a note. Well, that's thought. That's planning. Now, see, we're really raising the bar here, guys. Does anybody... Like, mine was about when I really thought and planned out and gave Robin a puppy for Christmas. That was mine, but we'll just keep that in the back pocket now. Yeah, one more. Yes. Yes, sir. Okay. Love it. Love it.

So you planned this trip. That means you've got the passports. You've got the airline. You've got the whole deal. Your job is to just pack one bag and trust me. Mm-mm-mm. So here's the thing. Some of you are like, I would never do that. I need to know what I'm packing. Yeah, okay. All right, all right, all right, all right, all right. Here's the thing. Here's the thing. If you have ever been on the receiving end of a gift, maybe it wasn't like this, but it was a gift, and you went, oh, wow, you've been what? You've been thinking about me a long time. Like, I come up in your thoughts. Like, you're planning for me. You're arranging all of these details. If you have ever been blessed to be on the receiving end of something like that, it'll take your breath away. You know what you end up realizing? Just how loved you are. Oh, wait. You have been on the receiving end of a gift like that. Now, I don't have time to go through all of these stories, and you see all of these mountains here, and it's like, wow, how much time are we going to take on this? No, I just want to tell you about one. So, some of you will remember if you were here when we talked about Mount Moriah. It's the story of Abraham and Isaac and Sarah.

God makes a promise to this old nomad and says, you know what? Through your descendants, I'm going to bless the world. I mean, the whole world's going to change. Later, there's a prophecy that there will be one who comes from the descendants of Abraham who literally just is everything, and of course, this is Messiah. But at this point in the story, Abraham doesn't have any kids with Sarah. There's a whole big complicated thing, and we won't go into it, but eventually, eventually, Actually, they have a boy, his name is Isaac. This boy grows up, so he is not six or seven. Most scholars would say he's at least in his teens. He is a young man, I want you to remember that. But now at this point, God has given him this young son. He has, like the promise is beginning, and God says to Abraham, I want you to go into the mountains and take Isaac, your son, and there, there'll be a place, and I want you to offer him back to me. What? I mean, it's such a difficult, difficult story. If you were here that weekend, or if you're interested in more of it, we've talked about this, and there's this whole idea of surrender and the questions that we were able to answer, the ones that we weren't, but when you read the story in Genesis 22, what you see is that there's a heartbroken father and a heartbroken son, and they are both going up the same hill together. And if you look at it in the Hebrew, Isaac is carrying a split tree that will now be his demise. God, is this the plan? I'm supposed to now sacrifice and offer up this one

that I love? Pivotal point in the story, God stops him and says, don't you do that. Your son will not be sacrificed today. And we began to see and to realize that even all the way back then, centuries and centuries before Jesus was born, God is saying, let me tell you what's gonna happen one day. You see, this idea of sacrifice is really difficult, and all throughout the Old Testament, there's this idea of a blameless substitute that shows up. And you see it even here in the story, because Abraham looks up at one point and sees a ram caught in the thicket, and so he calls this place Yahweh Yireh, which means God provides, the Lord will provide. Now, we kind of are used to a more Latinized version of that, we call it Jehovah Jireh, so that's where that comes from. But then he says this, and to this day, it is said on the mountain of the Lord, it will be provided. So there on Mount Moriah, there is this provision, God says, no, not your son, and the Lord provides. Now, here's where it gets interesting for me, and this is what I want you to remember, because it'll come back up later in the series. Mount Moriah and Mount Zion, they're not really like big mountains, they're kind of like hills, really, but Mount Moriah and Mount Zion are both

a part of what we would now call Jerusalem. In fact, if you really wanna get to what Mount Moriah is, one of the stories that we saw is that Mount Moriah is where the temple is built. Centuries later, David's son builds the temple on Mount Moriah. Now, are you seeing what's going on here? The epicenter of symbolic sacrifice for centuries was the temple, and the sacrifice was always pointing to the day when there would be one final sacrifice, and that will be it. There will be one who finally makes things right with God. All of the images, symbols, and metaphors are pointing to that day, to that moment, and you need to understand that within a few hundred yards of that temple, within a few hundred yards of where Abraham and Isaac walked up that mountain with broken hearts, that's where my Jesus was crucified on a sinner's cross. I'm telling you, from the very beginning, God has been saying, I've been planning this, I've been thinking of this, all the way back from when he says there will be one who crushes the head of evil. Jesus enters this story, and it's Jesus on this mountain the Lord will provide. Well, he did, and his name is Jesus, and we come to the cross. That's how we get to the cross from Genesis. But now you're in the shadow of the cross

if you're with the disciples, because here we go. The disciples are at a place where they're in their own moment of remembering. It's a fateful night, Jesus has gathered them together. They're going to remember the Passover. They're gonna remember how God redeemed and rescued them from slavery in Egypt. Thank you, sir. And so they're going through all of this, and in the middle of this highly symbolic meal, Jesus gives them a way to remember what's about to happen. Now, if you have your elements, I would say this would be a great time for you to get those. In just a moment, we'll take first the bread, and then the cup, we'll do this together. But I want you to sit with me for just a second. The plan all along was for us to do this with God, and we rebelled, and we've been rebelling ever since. But his is a love that does not give up, and he promised us, I will make a way. And all throughout the details, and the images, and the symbols, and the metaphors, and all the sacrifices led to that day, and that moment, and at that table with his disciples. Jesus says, it's me, it's me. I was the plan all along, it's me. You wanna know how this is gonna be made right? me, and then he says, I don't want you to forget, I want you to remember. So if you have received this gift of grace, and your heart is

ready, then in just a moment, I would ask you to, to celebrate communion with us. If you're still at a place where you're trying to figure out who, who he is, and whether you really trust this story, then I would say, just, just, I wouldn't participate in this. Don't, don't do this until it means something to you. Because just going through the motions isn't going to help anything. You see, when this gets to a place where it's something that you have received, when you've received this gift, well, then it's time to remember, and it's time to celebrate. Just know this, for the rest of us, when we do this, we are thanking God. We are remembering, we are celebrating how much we are loved, but we are doing this out loud and in front of you to remind you that you are that loved. See, I think that we forget sometimes just how, how nourishing communion can be. Sometimes we Protestants are so careful to make sure that we help people understand that this whole thing is a gift. And it is, for it is by grace that you have been saved through faith. It's a gift. It's not of ourselves, so we don't get to boast about it, but I don't want us to forget that this moment nourishes us. I don't want us to forget that at this moment, God is here. God is present with us. You see, sometimes when I remember what was real once becomes real again. And so when I come to the cross, when I come to this moment of

communion, God sometimes breaks the back of that thing that is weighing me down when I come to the table. Sometimes he begins to help me to turn the corner towards a different way and a different life. I begin to let go of something. I become reminded that God is still doing something in me again and again and again. Would you just prepare your heart now for a second before we take the cup? I know that this is just the beginning and you're not finished yet. You're not finished yet. Until I see your promise come, God with all I am, I'll keep believing that you're not finished yet. Oh, you're not finished yet. After he had given thanks, this is in the context of a highly symbolic meal. Jesus takes the unleavened bread, breaks it, and then says to his disciples, this is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. Father, we come before you now and I am grateful that you so love the world that you gave your son. Jesus, we do remember. Help us to not forget. Help us to remember and to allow your love to sink in deep. Spirit, we need you now to refresh and to remind and connect us to this grand story. You see, sometimes I forget that I'm forgiven. Sometimes I forget that I don't have to live with shame. Ever been that way?

Sometimes when I forget what Jesus has done for me, I forget to listen. I forget to be quiet. I forget that I don't have to have the last word. Sometimes I forget that it's time to let go of the grudge. Sometimes I forget it's time to just live a different life. When we remember, when we remind ourselves of this, what was real once becomes real again, and the grace continues to heal and it continues to change and it continues to call us. May God now continue to call us deeper into the story. Amen. Until the darkness breaks, I will praise you, I will praise you. In the same way, after the supper, Jesus took the cup saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. See, I think part of what Jesus was saying here is, this is the way an estranged people will now come close to God. It's my blood that will be poured out. Jesus says, this is what's happening. And whenever you take this cup, remember me. I won't forget the things you've done, for I know that this is just the beginning, and you're not finished yet, oh, you're not finished yet. And until I see your promise come, God, with all I am, I'll keep believing that you're not finished yet, you're not finished yet. So Paul says that whenever we do what we just did, whenever we celebrate communion together, we are proclaiming the Lord's death until he comes. We are proclaiming the power of the cross until the day the King returns. And I don't know about you, but I believe the King is coming again. And I believe that Jesus is returning, and that is the source of my hope. Amen. Anybody with me on that?

Yeah. So here's what I would say. Jeremy, don't go far, because it sounds like they're ready. But we're now about to jump headlong into the story of Jesus. I want you to know in the coming weeks, we are going to hear his voice again and again and again. You are going to come in contact with his character, his goodness, his courage, his humor, his mission, all of it. You're going to sense all of it. Now, I could give you like all of the coming attractions and kind of like what the details are. Are you the kind of people who like coming attractions? Let me ask it this way. Have you watched any of the Super Bowl commercials before they've, because they've all been released. Has anybody watched some of the commercials? It used to be that they kept those things really secret, like they cloaked them in secrecy. Now they release them all ahead of time. Do you know why? Because they found out that it stirs up interest and people watch even more. It all goes back, many people think, to this commercial from 15, 16 years ago that was released early and generated millions of views on YouTube before the Super Bowl. So everybody saw that commercial ahead of time. And then when the Super Bowl started, everybody went, wait, wait, wait, wait, you've got to watch this one. Now, I don't even know if you're watching the Super Bowl today. You might be watching the Olympics. You might be watching reruns of Gilmore Girls. I don't know what you're doing. But here's the thing. Here's the thing.

Is it possible, like, do we have like a commercial that's going to give you all of the stuff that we're going to be going to, you know, our budget couldn't handle that. But I can tell you that in the coming weeks, like next week, we're going to talk about temptation and how it is that we overcome it. We're going to talk about prayer and how you don't give up on it. There's going to be a week where we talk about miracles. And I mean the reality of miracles today. And I believe we're going to pray at the end of a service for miracles and we will see God do something. We're going to see controversies and challenges of Jesus. We're going to see amazing things. We're going to see the heartbreak of the cross and the triumph of the empty tomb. And then it's going to keep going and going and going. And then one last mountain. And we're going to end just the way I told you we're going to end. You see, in that passage there in Revelation 21 and 22, John has been using all sorts of imagery. I told you the Lion of Judah. He's the King of Kings. He is the root of David. He's all of these things, but he is God and Jesus wins. And then we see this in chapter 21. Look, John hears, look, God's dwelling place. is now among the people and he will dwell with them and they will be his God and God himself will be with them and be their God. Now that you know what you know about Genesis 1, what does that sound like? We're right back to Eden. God is saying at the end of the story, look, I promised you a way back. Welcome home. I want to dwell with you. I want to be in a new creation with you. I want this to be better. I want this to be healed. And that's the promise that we cling to. Listen, we live in a world, we live in a world that is, it's just, it's got some truly great moments and it's got some truly heartbreaking moments. And I don't know where you are right

now, but I know this, there is a God who says, I will have the last word. And I believe that you and I know people who need to hear this word of hope. We know people who are ready to take the next step. We know people who have a question and they just want a place where they can ask it. And we know in our own hearts that we need to be reminded that hope is more than a word. It all begins next week. And I'm asking you to be here because it is good for us to remind ourselves of such things. Amen. But now as we leave, I'm going to ask you, if you would, if this was more than just going through the motions, if this was more than just observing, then I'm now going to ask you to participate one last time as our worship leaders, they lead us and we respond. It's going to be real easy. They lead us and we respond. And let's remind ourselves because it's good to remember these things.