The Ascension | Josh Leake

Everybody say divine partnership. So we're studying moments in the book of Acts where people partnered with the Holy Spirit. So if you've ever wondered, what does this mean to partner with the Holy Spirit, a supernatural God to allow him to show up in my life or through my life? Or how do I activate that? How do I know if I'm doing that? We're gonna look at the groundwork and framework that the book of Acts lays out of how we can partner with a supernatural God. That's what we'll be studying. Today, we're looking at Acts chapter one. So if you wanna turn there in your Bibles or on your phone, we'll put it on the screen as well, but I wanna encourage you, have the Bible app on your phone or your physical Bible, 'cause there's some verses in here that will be really good to highlight. It's worth coming back to. Acts chapter one, the context for this is one of the most important moments in historical Christianity because this is the moment after Jesus resurrected when he ascends into heaven. Very important moment. The disciples and really all of Jesus' followers, now they know for sure this guy is the Messiah, he's God and human flesh, and he's the one that's been prophesied about.

So surely now is the time when he's going to announce himself as the king of Israel and get rid of the Roman rule that they were under and become the eternal king of all creation. That's what they were expecting, really what all of his followers are expecting. And what they instead get is a huge, now what moment? Because Jesus ascends into heaven and leaves them. So it's a massive, massive, now what moment where they're left to figure it out. Something that I've noticed to be true is that your car and my car seem to have a sense of when is the worst time to have a problem. I don't know, it's like built into the mechanics of it where it's like you got money troubles, you got stuff going on, you're not feeling good now. Engine trouble right now. And you know, you roll the dice then of like the mechanic, this is either going to cost me $80 or it's going to cost me $1,500. Like there's no way to know what it's going to cost you. One of my biggest moments where I face and now what moment? Some of you may know this story. When I first got married, it was like my entry into adulthood because I got my first job working here. And then I was really young, a few months later I got married. As soon as we got back to the airport from our honeymoon, we got in the car and my engine just came out. So we're driving home and it's like rattling along

and it was totaled, we took it to the mechanic and they were like, this is done. So I found used dealership that was like, I'll give you $200 and I was like, I will take the deal across the city driving this rattling car to get $200. So I drove it into the Liberty Tunnel and it broke down in the middle of the Liberty Tunnel for $200, not worth it at all. That was one of the biggest, now what moment's ever? Just enter adulthood, car trouble at the worst, possible time now. So the disciples are faced with a kind of now what moment because everyone thought that this was the moment that Jesus would announce himself as the ultimate king of creation. But instead now he disappears. So Acts chapter one, verse four, here's what it says, on one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command, do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift, my father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John, John the Baptist is who he's talking about, John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. Then they gathered around him and asked, Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel? So there's the expectation that really everybody had. Now is the moment that's been prophesied about

because the Old Testament Jewish scriptures, Daniel, Zachariah, Isaiah, all prophesied that the Messiah would have an eternal throne where he would rule over everything with justice and peace forever. So this expectation they have that now he's gonna set things right and become the ultimate king, it wasn't a misplaced expectation. It was based on what was prophesied that one day there would be a physical, political, complete kingdom under a perfect king. And so they were saying, now's the moment, surely that this is gonna happen. Verse seven, he says, it is not for you to know the times or the dates the father has set by his own authority, but you will receive power. Let's read verse eight together. in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth." After he said this, he was taking it before their very eyes and a cloud hid him from their sight. So again, they're asking, "Is now the moment when you're going to be announcing yourself as king over everything?" The Old Testament prophecy is finally fulfilled. Jesus answers and he says, "Wait for the Holy Spirit. Bye." And he's gone. And they're left to figure everything out on their own, or so it feels like they didn't have a concept of what a church or what the church would be, or what God was going to birth through them. They had wanted Jesus to announce himself as king and take over, but Jesus wanted to prepare them that something was going to happen through them. They wanted it to happen through the ultimate announcement of a king. Jesus is saying, "When the Holy Spirit comes on you, it's going to happen through you." Not the ultimate final coming of the kingdom, but the next move of God and the coming of the kingdom of God. So let me say this to you. There are

things that God wants to do through your life. You and I were not just meant to live ethical Christian lives. That's a part of it, but it's more than that. We just came out of this series, Foundations, where we were studying the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus' teachings on ethical lifestyles of how a disciple of Jesus Christ should live. And when we lived that way, we're building on a solid foundation. But being a disciple of Jesus, a follower of God is more than just those teachings. It's a big part of that. And it's more than just salvation and life after death. It's those things. But a massive part of it is that God has things He wants to do through your life, not just in it. He has people He wants to touch in situations He wants to change through your life. For the disciples, this now what moment? Where their leader, their master, their king leaves, this is the catalyst and the trigger for what God had been planning to do through them. So in John 16, 7, I'll just read this for you. Just listen to this. It's not on the screen. I just want you to listen as I talk about it. Jesus is telling His disciples about what would happen in the future. John 16, He says, "It is for your good that I'm going away. Unless I go away, the advocate will not come to you. But if I go, I will send Him to you." Jesus was fully God, but He was also fully man, meaning He was limited. He limited Himself to human space and time. So He's telling them, "It's going to be for your good when I leave, because it's not just Jesus God man in one place. You're going to have the Holy Spirit that will be with you, empowering you, leading you wherever you go. It's for your good." So the way to accomplish their assignment was not to work hard or to strategize. It also wasn't accomplished by sitting around. It was in the middle of those two things. It wasn't go out and work hard and strategize, and it wasn't sit and wait, and God's going to make it all happen for you without you doing anything. It was in the middle what God wanted to do through them required partnership. The Lord birthed the global movement of Christianity through these 11 guys, because remember Judas, the 12th, had betrayed Jesus and then regretted it and then killed Himself. So now there's only 11 of them, and Jesus leaves, and these 11 guys got birthed 2,000 years later. We're looking back at the movement that was birthed from what the Holy Spirit did through these 11 guys. And it wasn't their talent. It wasn't their Bible knowledge. It wasn't their strategic vision. They weren't the most talented or the most mature or the most devoted. So how did these 11 ordinary guys turn the world

upside down and start a global movement? It was partnering with the Spirit of God. Let me preach this to you now. God's plan has always been to partner with ordinary people to bring the kingdom of God to the world around them. This is what He did back then, and it's what He does now. He partners with ordinary people to change the world. So here's the main point. Spiritual activity and acceleration cannot replace partnership. So if you're going it's only going to happen through partnership with the Holy Spirit. Sometimes we can confuse activity and acceleration or speed with the move of God, because we can be doing things, we can be speeding up, we can be seeing results, and so we feel good about how things are going, or we're seeing in somebody else activity and speed and spiritual things. It can even be good things, but there is a difference between spiritual activity and speed and partnering with the Holy Spirit. Those are not always the same thing, and you can be active spiritually and doing things, but neglect partnering with the person of the Holy Spirit. God did not ask the disciples, rush off and figure it out. Now that you know what to do, you're going to be my witnesses, go figure it out. He told them, wait, go to Jerusalem and wait for the Holy Spirit, because rushing off and doing it their best on their own would have never been enough. For you and me, I'll say the same thing. Our best will never be enough to accomplish what God wants to do through us. There are always going to be times in life where the ways that we have done things don't work anymore. There are just times where you're going to take on new phases and seasons of life where you're just going to hit into the brick wall of reality. So, taking on a new job or school or getting married or having kids, if you try to behave the same way that you've always behaved when you get married or have kids, you will hit the brick wall of life very quickly, because the way of always existing before it just doesn't work. There's times where we have to just, things have to change. I remember when I was younger, my mindset, especially in middle school and high school, was any time I had an assignment or a project or something I was working on, my mindset is I'm going to wait till the last possible feasible minute and then I'll start. That was like always what I lived. So, if I had a month to do something, I was going to wait until a few hours before and that's when I came alive. That is, I always wanted to feel like I was on the edge of falling apart. Like that's, everything was like diffusing a bomb, like it's life or death in middle school. That's how I was, every assignment's like a diffusing

a bomb. I remember in college, it was up till then too, I had a paper that was worth 15% of my grade, massive paper, huge part of my grade, and my responsible friends that were really task oriented, highlighted things and made a schedule and every week they were knocking out things. I waited to start this paper until 10 p.m. the night before. So, some of you, I know who are type A people, you're just starting to have a panic attack about that. I finished this paper, 15% of my grade at 6 a.m. the next morning, which was one hour before class started. And what I didn't realize is that I needed library books to complete this project and the library was closed. So, I just didn't pay attention at all. So, I spent $100 on Amazon buying books so I could complete this project, but guess what? I got nay. So, I learned my lesson, I really did that, continuing to operate the way where every paper is like life or death, eventually bit me in the butt because I had to pay money for it. There are always going to be times in life where our usual way of existing or getting things done or operating, we're going to hit a brick wall and it's not going to work. When it comes to the assignment of God on your life, there is never anything that you can do on your own that will be good enough. You and I, our talent knowledge skill, will never be enough on our own. It always has to come back to the fact that we need to partner. So, God is not assigning you, go out and do more, rush out, do it faster, accelerate, more activity. He assigns you to partner with him. So, if you want to see God move through your life, you need to learn to partner with the Holy Spirit. And yes, the Holy Spirit is God, he's our King, we submit to him, we worship him, but he offers himself as a partner to accomplish the assignments he gives us. The only way to allow God to work through your life, to accomplish what he's asking is partnership with the person of the Spirit. And this is not a position you earn based on how long you've been following. It's not based on how much scripture you have memorized, how much you know, how much you pray. God is not discriminating based on your spiritual accomplishments or The Holy Spirit takes ordinary followers and empowers them to change the world. This is the pattern we see over and over again in the Bible and we see it now here today. The Holy Spirit takes ordinary people. So for some of you, God is calling you just to realign

where you've been doing things in your own strength and he's just calling you back to partnership. Not activity, but partnership with the Spirit. Some of you though, you're going to start to move out of receiving mode. What I mean is this is where all relationships with God start. We start in receiving mode, where we receive what God's done for us. We ask for forgiveness. We receive his peace, his love, his forgiveness. We get to be in community with other people and experience the power of being in life-giving community, the church. But if we stay in receiving mode, we become Christian consumers. And consumers are really just worried about intake. I like the music, I like the vibes, I like the messages, I like the feelings, I like the people, but it stays focused on intake. You were meant to be a partner who changes people in situations through the power of the Holy Spirit and moving away from somebody who just has God doing things for them or in them and shifting to somebody who partners to allow the Holy Spirit to do things through you. So the Ascension moment we're studying gives us a few things that we anchor our partnership in. Again, some of you for the first time are going to start to pursue this and learn to partner. Some of us is just calling us back to home base.

But this Ascension moment lays the groundwork. So we'll talk about a couple of anchors here that we can see in the Ascension moment that anchor our partnership in the Holy Spirit. Okay, here's the first anchor. Number one, we have a returning king. So this moment where Jesus ascends, it's about his departure where he passes responsibility to the 11 apostles, but this moment is also about his eventual return. The next verses where we left off, listen to this Acts chapter one, verse 10, they were looking intently up into the sky as he was going when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. Men of Galilee, they said, why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus who has been taken from you into heaven will come back in the same way you've seen him go into heaven. When we're partnering with the Holy Spirit, the first thing we have to remember, and this is a dah, obvious one, but it's an important one, the hope of the world does not rest on you or on me. The hope of the world rests on the fact that we have a returning king who will come back someday. We are not the Messiah, we are not the savory of humanity. And sometimes we look around and we feel helpless and frustrated like someone needs to do something. You see the suffering, pain, loss, betrayal, evil, happening in your community and your family and the world around you and headlines.

And there's a helpless feeling that comes from that, but we have to remember there is nothing that you or I could possibly do now to see all of the brokenness and evil fixed. But our partnership with the Holy Spirit when we're working with him is anchored in this moment because we're looking back on when Jesus passed us the instructions to partner, but we're also looking forward to the return of the king. Because one day, ultimate justice and peace will come and everything will be made right when King Jesus comes back. The ascension of Jesus Christ, it marks the moment when he passed the reigns to the church, to his people until he returns. But let me tell you the truth, he is coming back. That's not a dream or an idea, it's a fact of reality. The angels pronounced it. Just as he left, he's gonna come back. So he left on the Mount of Olives, he'll come back in the same place. And when he does every single ounce of evil and suffering and pain and sin will be wiped away. Everything will be set right. And the older I get, the more I long for this moment. I remember when I was younger, talking with my wife, Alison, or even before we got married and just having the feeling of, I want Jesus to come back, but maybe just a little longer. Let's hold it off, 'cause I really, I wanna get married and I wanna have king.

So can you wait a couple years? I think sometimes those feelings come because we don't truly understand how good it will be when he comes back. Every good thing that we understand about existence comes from the Creator. He created everything good. So imagine how much better everything will be when the perfect king is in charge and he's back. And he sets all of creation right. We have to remember that everything will get better, perfect when he comes back. But the other thing I've realized is, and I've talked with people who've experienced more of life than me, people who are older, everybody can agree on the same thing. The more life that you live, the more you're exposed to the brokenness in the evil of the world. Where you see death and loss and tragedy and suffering and evil. And sometimes it feels overwhelming. Feels like, "God, where are you? Why is this happening?" But the thing we come back to when we're pursuing partnership with the person of the Holy Spirit is, King Jesus is coming back. It's a guarantee. The king will return and when he comes,

death and suffering and evil are gone forever. Somebody say amen to that. That's what our hope is in, a returning king. It's our first anchor in partnership. Here's the second one, is we have a present assignment. When Jesus ascended, he didn't say to the disciples, sit back, relax, I'm gonna take care of everything. You don't need to do anything, wait until I come back. He left them with an assignment. So let me ask you, everyone in the room, what is your current assignment? 'Cause God has an assignment for you right now. So do you know your assignment? The Holy Spirit gives both broad and specific assignments. The broad assignment is what we call the Great Commission to what Jesus gave all his followers, all his disciples. Matthew chapter 28 verse 18 says this, "Then Jesus came to them and said, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me, therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always to the very end of the age." So the broad assignment is to make disciples of every nation, to baptize them and to teach them to follow everything Jesus commanded. It's what we call the Great Commission, what all disciples are assigned to do. Make disciples who make disciples who make disciples.

So if you're gonna follow Jesus, give your life to him, if you're gonna partner with the Holy Spirit, he will lead you here every time. So let me ask you, what disciples are you making? And if the answer to that question is, I don't really know, the solution is not, well, you better figure that out, rush and do it. That's actually the opposite of what this message is. What's the answer? Pursue the person of the Holy Spirit. Making disciples on your own is never gonna be enough. You and I need the partnership of the Holy Spirit to fulfill that broad assignment he's given us. So the answer is pursue the Holy Spirit, knowing him, obeying him, listening for him. But then the Holy Spirit also gives specific assignments. We're gonna see this all throughout the book of Acts, that the Holy Spirit would lead people to specific conversations or specific locations to preach or to plant churches. So the Holy Spirit may give you specific people to pray for or ministries to get involved with or family members that are unsaved, that you are talking with or praying for, that are on your heart, that the Holy Spirit will assign to you. So let me ask you again, do you know your assignment? For me, some of the most life-giving moments have been when God has led me to use my story to impact somebody else. Where God has used pain or difficulty that I've been through as a way to impact

something else difficult that someone is going through. I'm gonna invite the team to get ready here. And I remember one specific moment that I was interacting with a guy. It was just the Holy Spirit had set this up. Where this guy had just reached the end of himself. His relational things had gone sideways. Life hadn't gone the way that he thought it would. Things kind of fell apart. His dreams of how life would turn out just crumbled. And so he was left feeling like, "Man, I don't even think God cares. I don't even know if he's real. If he was, I don't know why this would happen." And I was able to, not really through my own power at all, exactly what God had done in my life, where some of my dreams of how life would go and the business I was building and when things crumbled, the depression and isolation I felt like I was going through and what God brought me through, I was able to share encouragement with him out of that. And I got to watch him over a period slowly recover and put his faith in God and fully trust. It is such a life given feeling when the Holy Spirit sets up these moments where what God's done in your life becomes something he does through your life. This is what it means to have a specific assignment is you're paying attention.

Holy Spirit, what are you assigning me to or who are you assigning me to? There are people around you every single day who are starving for a word or a touch from God. And God wants to partner with you to speak life into others, someone who delivers the power of God to them. So what's your assignment? Maybe you've already experienced partnering with the Spirit before, but recently you've kind of fallen off of the hunger to partner with him and you need to come back to close relationship with the Holy Spirit to wait on him, to ask him what he asked for you. Maybe you've been spiritually active and accelerating but you've been relying on your own strength or your own wisdom. And there are things and people in situations that you want to see changed, but you have been relying on yourself rather than asking the Spirit what his plans are. So the first step would be you need to admit the pride or insecurity or need for control and come back to the Spirit. Maybe you've never partnered before, this idea waiting on the Holy Spirit, being empowered by him as a foreign concept to you. Maybe you've never made disciples before, never moved out of receiving mode

and into letting God work through you. Your next step is just to pursue the Holy Spirit, actually for every one of us, no matter what category you fall into, the next step is not an activity, it's a person. The next step is pursuing partnership with the Holy Spirit, knowing him, giving him everything, worshiping him and allowing him to speak so that you can partner with him. That gets us to our final anchor that we learned in the Ascension moment here. Number three is a promised partner. This is Acts 1-8. You'll receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you is what Jesus said right before he ascended. We actually just finished going through a two week course on the book of Acts in Alison Park Leadership Academy, that's our ministry school. Any ministry school students in the room, just wave at me if you were in that class. Yeah, okay, couple of you. This verse, Acts 1-8, it's the theme verse for the whole rest of the book. Because when Jesus left and he said, "Now you are going to be my witnesses "and the global movement was birth," again, it wasn't go figure it out, wait on the Holy Spirit and when the Holy Spirit comes, he's gonna empower you. The partnership of the Holy Spirit

when you come in humility and surrender is a promise. Here's why that's important to remember. It is not based on how you're doing that day or that week. God is not discriminating based on how you feel like your devotional life has been. God is not discriminating based on how you feel like your performance has been. God does not choose to partner with you or love you based on how you feel like you're doing. I just need to preach this into some of your souls for a second. God is not looking to partner with you based on your knowledge or your devotion or your maturity or how much you know about the Bible. What is he looking for? People who come with surrender and humility. These disciples were ordinary, unschooled guys. They weren't the most talented or the strongest or the most devoted or mature. They were ordinary people who were saying yes to God. So this is something that we have to come back to. The Holy Spirit is not looking for you to have it figured out. Sometimes we think that, that the Holy Spirit is picking people, or you're the most talented, you're the most devoted. You've got the most skills in this area. You know the most about the Bible. Actually, when we think we have something to offer is when we get into trouble. Because the Bible says God opposes the proud

but gives grace to the humble. So the way to partner with the Holy Spirit, to allow him to work through you, is to say, I don't have it figured out. If you feel like, man, I really wanna see God work. I feel like I'm at my end. I feel like I don't know enough. I'm not devoted enough, but I really want this. Guess what? You're in perfect position because you're admitting your need. The Holy Spirit is not looking for people who are like, I've got the answers. He's looking for people who come in humility to say, I'll do whatever, because I need you. And I know that if you come and you empower me, anything can happen. Partnership with the person of the Holy Spirit. So would you close your eyes, bow your heads with me. I'm gonna remind you of something. The Holy Spirit did not rescue you from sin and death just for you. The Holy Spirit, Jesus Himself died on that cross to rescue you so that you can become an agent of change, bringing the kingdom of God and the world around you. But the first step, if you've never taken the step to follow Jesus is to ask for forgiveness for your sins and to make him the king of your life. Because this is what Jesus described as the problem with humanity is that every one of us has a sin infection in the heart.

There's no way to be rid of this. Every one of us has selfishness, rebellion, sin that corrupts our heart that says, I'm gonna do life my own way. There's no way to get rid of that. It's infected every single one of us. The desire to say, I'm the king of my life, I make my own calls. And God Himself saw that there was no way for us to be free of this problem. So He came down Himself. Jesus Christ, fully God, fully man, lived a perfect life and then died an agonizing death on a cross in our place to absorb the cost of our sin so that you and I have hope for the future. And the way that you're made right with God, that you have a hope for the future, that you have hope for eternity with Jesus in heaven rather than in hell is by commitment of the heart. The Bible says, if you believe in your heart and confess with your mouth, that Jesus is Lord, you will be saved. So the way to be saved is not to rush out and to do religious things. What's the way to do it? You surrender your heart. He's not after all the right actions. He's after your heart. So this morning, let me just tell you, this is the best thing you could ever do,

'cause this is what life's really about. We could tell you a million stories from the people in this room who've been transformed by the forgiving power of Jesus Christ and how we really begin to experience what real life is. Because the lie that we believe either from our own desire or sinful desire to be king or from the devil is that live for yourself, build your own career, do whatever you wanna do, whatever makes you happy, live that way. But the truth is, you were not designed to live only for that. You were not an accident who happens to be here and you make whatever the best you can and then you're gone. Everybody deep down knows that life is designed. You were not an accident. You were designed to know your creator. So listen, if you're in the room, every eye closed, every head bowed, if you've never given your life to Jesus and said, I want you to be my king and I need you to forgive my sin. That is always the first step. Believe in your heart, confess with your mouth. And so if you wanna make that decision, when I count to three, I want you to raise your hand. Okay, when you are giving your life to King Jesus who gave us life on the cross, who bled and died for you,

it's important to have an active of your will. So raise your hand to say, today I'm making this choice. Listen, if it's you, you know it's you, the Holy Spirit's working on your heart. He's prompting you and I want you to be bold now. Ready? One, two, three, just say, yeah, that's me. I'm giving my life to Jesus this morning. I'm not living for myself anymore. I need to be forgiven. Jesus, I surrender to you, that's beautiful. You can put your hands down. Together, everybody in the room, let's pray a prayer of commitment. Whether it's rededication, we're all just saying, Jesus, now I need to be forgiven, I wanna follow you. So repeat after me and say, dear Jesus, thank you for dying on that cross for me. Thank you for bleeding in my place. Thank you for the suffering you endured so that I didn't have to. So Lord, I ask for your forgiveness now. I ask you to cleanse me, make me a new creation, and I surrender my life to you. Be my king, be my leader. I wanna follow you now. Lord, fill my life with your peace. Fill my life with your joy. I surrender to you in Jesus' name. Everybody said, amen, amen. Give it up for those that made that decision today.

Amazing. So what we're gonna do now as we get ready to close is we are gonna take communion together. So you can stay seated now. And this moment, the only thing you need to do you don't need to be a member of the church or have been following Jesus for a certain amount of time. The only requirement to take part in communion is that you have said, Jesus, I need you to forgive me for my sins and I wanna make you the king of my life. If you've done that, you're welcome to join. If not, you can just let the trade pass you by. So now the ushers are gonna make their way forward and begin to distribute the elements. And the team's gonna lead us in a song, just a song of surrender to come back to the Holy Spirit, to say, Lord, I wanna partner with you, I wanna follow you. So as they distribute the elements, just sing with the team here, surrender, and then I'll be out to close us in communion in just one minute. ♪ I am, you call ♪ ♪ I am, I am the one ♪ ♪ I say, yes Lord ♪ ♪ I am, I am the one ♪ ♪ I hear you call ♪ ♪ I am available ♪ ♪ I say, yes Lord I am ♪

♪ I am ♪ ♪ I am ♪ ♪ Here I am, here I am ♪ ♪ Here I am ♪ ♪ You can have it all ♪ ♪ You can have it all ♪ ♪ Here I am ♪ ♪ Here I am ♪ ♪ You can have it all ♪ ♪ Here I am ♪ - Come on lift your hands and sing it now. ♪ Here I am ♪ - Just surrender to him. ♪ Here I am ♪ ♪ Everything good ♪ ♪ Jesus, Jesus, I am ♪ - Come on give him everything now. ♪ Here I am ♪ ♪ Here I am ♪ ♪ I am ♪ ♪ I am ♪ ♪ You can have it all ♪ - One more time singing. ♪ Here I am ♪ ♪ Here I am ♪ ♪ Oh, here I am ♪ ♪ You can have it all ♪ ♪ You can have it all ♪ ♪ Here I am ♪ ♪ Here I am ♪

♪ You can have it all ♪ ♪ Here I am ♪ - So take the bread in your hands now and just hold it before we get ready to eat it in just a minute here. So we're remembering just like Jesus commanded when he set up the new covenant with his people, with his church at the Last Supper, he commanded us to do this in remembrance of him. So the bread represents his body, his, it was broken when he suffered, the nails were driven through his hands and feet, he went through agony for us. So the reminder here is God was so committed to you and to me that he was willing to endure unimaginable pain. We don't have a God who's distant. We have a God who came down and knows what it's like to experience grief, sorrow, suffering, pain. And so if you're in the room and you're feeling heavy, remember Jesus knows what it is to suffer. He knows where you are, he knows what you're going through because he has endured betrayal, loss, suffering, pain. And so hold the bread in your hand and let's pray, Lord, we thank you for what you endured on that cross. Can't even imagine, Lord, what you went through, the pain you experienced, not just the pain of the nails going through your hands and feet, but the pain of betrayal by the ones you came to save,

you poured out your life for. So Lord, we say thank you for your body that was broken, for your commitment to your people. We are so grateful for your sacrifice in Jesus' name. Everybody said, amen, let's take the bread together. Now take the cup in your hands. So we're remembering this represents the blood of Jesus Christ that was poured out on the cross. And it represents the final sacrifice for our sins. That once and for all, when we come to Jesus, We ask for forgiveness. We make him our king. [BLANK_AUDIO] And with every single one of us, the only way to be healed is the blood of Jesus. And you and I are forgiven and made right so that one day when King Jesus returns in the same way he left, we will stand before him perfectly clean and righteous, not because of anything we have to offer but because of the blood of Jesus Christ. But also, this is a moment when we remember the forgiveness that Jesus offers us that we should reflect on where we need to offer forgiveness to others. This is what Jesus commands us to do. If we're gonna take the cup that represents his blood and forgiveness of sins, we can't do that and yet harbor bitterness, resentment of unforgiveness towards others.

So close your eyes with me now and just see Jesus up on that cross dying for you and just allow the Holy Spirit to speak to you now, maybe to reveal a face or a name of somebody that causes your spirit to coil or your fists to clench where you feel angry, betrayed, a husband or a wife or a parent, a child, a coworker, somebody where you have been harboring feelings of unforgiveness because of things they said or did. So what we come back to is we don't forgive in our own strength, you and I have been forgiven an insurmountable death by Jesus. And so out of that we say, God, I choose to forgive anyone who's done me wrong because you forgave me even though I could never earn it. So now just maybe you even wanna whisper that. If there's a person the Holy Spirit brought to mind just to say, I forgive them, not in my own strength but I choose to release them. I choose to release my resentment or my bitterness or my unforgiveness. And Lord, as we hold this cup now in our hands, any area of our life that is not aligned with you, any area of our life where we have been speaking or thinking or living in a way that is not pleasing to you, that is sinful Lord convict us because we want to live for you. We wanna be like you, we wanna be holy and we can't do that on our own. We know it's only by your blood

and by the power of the Holy Spirit. So we say, Lord forgive us, make us new, wash us clean, thank you for your blood. And we remember, before we take this, we remember Lord that we are forgiven once and for all by the blood of Jesus, not by anything we can do. We remember regardless of what we feel, regardless of what our emotions say, we are forgiven by the blood of Jesus. We say thank you for that. In Jesus' name everybody said, Amen, let's take the cup. (gentle music) Yeah, now stretch forth your hand. Let me pray over you before we go today. I pray that though, there would be a Holy Spirit hunger placed in you this week. That you would begin to hunger for the things of God more than anything else. And that everything else in the world would maybe lose a little bit of its taste as you hunger for God more and more and realize he is the only thing that will satisfy. And I pray you will experience the power of the partnership of the Spirit, that you'll begin to hear him speak in new ways, you'll hunger for him like never before, that he'll begin to work through you in new ways. I pray for those of you in the room that are feeling heavy, that are feeling burdened, overcome with grief,

with pain, with sorrow. I pray that the peace that goes beyond understanding would invade your heart and mind, the peace that comes only from Christ Jesus. I pray that the wind of the Holy Spirit that gives life as we trust him would overcome you as you trust him. And I pray that his grace and his favor would rest upon you, that it would rest upon your family in Jesus' name. Everybody said, amen, amen. Awesome. Guys, one more thing before we leave, the huge part of communion is that we're remembering we're together with God, but we're remembering that we are a family. This is a huge part of what communion is about, is that we are communing with each other. So, we have ice cream sandwiches out there because it's not fall yet. It's still summer. You hear me? Still summer, it's not fall. So we got ice cream sandwiches. Stick around for a minute. Talk to somebody. Let's be a family together. Thank you so much for being here. Hope to see you at Revival night tomorrow night.