Immanuel Sermon Audio
Luke 20:1-18
And so, let's get started. Grab a Bible and find Luke chapter 20. There's also an outline in the bulletin. If you'd like to follow along on that outline. Luke chapter 20, while you find Luke 20. Let me tell you about a few things we're going to talk about over the next couple of weeks. Beginning next Sunday, we're going to take a break from Luke and we're going to spend the rest of this year talking about missions and the series is going to be called Finish the Mission. And really, we're going to just think about what will it take, what will be involved for the mission, the Great Commission, make disciples of all the nations, teaching them to obey everything Jesus commanded us. What will it take for that to be finished? So, we're going to talk about missions at the end of the year. Then in January, we're going to move on for missions and we're going to talk about knowing God's will. For a lot of people, this is a struggle. This is a question. This is something they wrestle with. What is God's will for my life? What does He want me to do? What does He not want me to do? Which decision should I make? And so we're going to talk about that in January. And then we're going to jump back into Luke. And this is pretty cool. As I was planning all this out a few months ago, I realized this. We're going to talk about missions in December. And we're going to talk about what is God's will in January. Then we're going to pick back up in Luke and I'm detailing out Luke to see when we wrap up the Gospel of Luke because we're pretty close to the end. Guess what passage we're talking about on Easter Sunday? The resurrection. I wish I could tell you I planned it that way. Total blind luck. Or the providence of God, whichever one you believe in. But on Easter Sunday, we talk about the resurrection. And then a few weeks later, we'll finish up the Gospel of Luke. This morning, we're in Luke 20. Our passage is verse 1 to 18. And I want to just begin by reminding you that we are in the last week of Jesus' life in Luke 20. Sunday, he enters Jerusalem. This is the triumphal entry Jesus writing in on a donkey. We talked about that last Sunday. On Monday, he comes back into town and he clears the temple. Again, we talked about that last week. Tuesday, we saw this briefly and then we're going to see Tuesday today. He is teaching and he's teaching in the temple area. Now, a lot of us have a general idea about what the temple is like. But look at this picture of the temple. This is a little model that somebody made and they took a picture of it. Put some arrows up here so you know what's going on. The black arrow pointing down, that's the temple itself. The actual temple, the arch of the covenant is in there, the holy of holies. That's the temple. The light blue arrow coming in from the top right is pointing to the court of the priests. It's a little part around the temple that only the priests were allowed to enter. Then there's a red arrow coming in from the left. The red arrow is called the court of Israel. You didn't have to be a priest, but in this area you had to be a Jewish male. Any Jewish male could come into this part. Then there's a purple arrow coming up from the bottom and that's called the court of the women and Jewish females. It could come into that part. Now, all around that temple area you see these green boxes. That's the court of the Gentiles. That's where Gentiles could go. They could go to observe, they could go to watch. Maybe they were converts to Judaism, but they'd never been circumcised. They weren't true Jews. Gentiles could go in this green area on either side. That's the area where we saw Jesus last week go in and start flipping over tables, driving people out. When you see it on this scale you realize that's a pretty big area. I don't know what you thought Jesus was clearing out if you have in mind our foyer. He goes out in our foyer and starts flipping tables over driving people. This is a big area. There's tons of people, tons of tables, tons of animals, tons of money changers. This is where he walks in and he starts flipping over tables. This is also where he's teaching in the passage that we're going to look at this morning. Let's go back to the last week of his life. I just want you to see we're on Tuesday. We're just about two days away from the Passover. When you get to the Passover you're just a day away from the arrest and the crucifixion. We're down to about the last 72 hours in Jesus' life. In this passage he walks into the court of the Gentiles, the place I just showed you, and he confronts his enemies. Listen to me. If you ever had in your mind that Jesus was soft or weak or sort of like a hippie guy. Walking around just telling everybody to be cool and take it easy. This is not Jesus. This is not your guy. In this passage he walks onto enemy territory. We understand the temple really belonged to him and pointed to him. We get all that. But his enemies controlled it at this point. And he walks onto their turf and he looks them straight in the eyeball even though they've already given the order to arrest him. Even though they've already made plans to murder him. Even though Jesus knows that in about 72 hours they're going to hang him on a cross. He walks right into their place, into their domain, their lair. And he confronts him. And it's a shocking passage. Jesus, this is like the way in in a championship fight. This is like two guys staring nose to nose. They're about to have this showdown. That's what's happening here in Luke 20. Let me give you the big idea and then we're going to read the passage. Big idea is simple. Jesus is the Son of God who has authority to judge all peoples. All peoples. If that big idea said authority to judge all people, the idea would be there that he has the authority to judge each and every single person as an individual. That's true, but it's not the point in this passage. In this passage the point is Jesus is the Son of God who has authority to judge all of the peoples, all of the nations, all of the tribes, all of the families of the earth, Jew, Gentile, all of them. And so look with me at the text, Luke chapter 20 beginning in verse 1 and we're going to read down to verse 18. Jesus says this, "One day as Jesus was teaching the people in the temple and preaching the gospel, the chief priests and the scribes with the elders came up and said to him, tell us by what authority you do these things or who is it that gave you this authority." Remember he just went in the day before and flipped their stuff over and drove them out. And who's authority they want to know? Verse 3, Jesus answered them, "I also will ask you a question. Now tell me, was the baptism of John from heaven or from man?" And they discussed it with one another saying, "If we say from heaven, he will say, why did you not believe him?" If we say from man, all the people will stone us to death for their convinced that John was a prophet. So they answered that they did not know where it came from. Jesus said to them, "Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things." And he began to tell the people this parable, a man planted a vineyard and he let it out to tenants. And he went into another country for a long while. And when the time came, he sent a servant to the tenant so that they would give him some of the fruit of the vineyard. But the tenants beat him and sent him away empty handed. And he sent another servant, but they also beat and treated him shamefully and they sent him away empty handed. And he sent yet a third. This one they also wounded and cast out. Then the owner of the vineyard said, "What shall I do? I will send my beloved son. Perhaps they will respect him." But when the tenants saw him, they said to themselves, "This is the heir. Let's kill him so that the inheritance may be ours." And they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them? He will come and destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others. When they heard this, they said, "Surely not." But he looked directly at them and said, "What then is this that is written?" The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces. And when it falls on anyone, it will crush him. This is the word of God, let's pray. Father, as we see Jesus in the last moments of his life on this earth, the last moments before his sacrificial death, as we listen to his words, we pray that we would leave with a greater understanding of who he is, a greater gratitude and appreciation for what he came to accomplish on our behalf, and a greater desire to respond to him in faith and in worship and obedience and to give our lives to him. Open our hearts and our minds to your word this morning. We ask it in Jesus' name, amen. Two simple parts to this passage. You can see it clearly in the text. Verse 1 to 8, all about the authority of Jesus. We're going to talk about that first. Verse 9 to 18, a parable that Jesus tells at a specific time to specific people for a specific reason in response to this question about, tell us on whose authority you do these things and say these things. So we're going to talk about the authority of Jesus and then we'll talk about the parable. So first of all, see this. The authority of Jesus is rooted in who he is as the promised Messiah. He's the one that God's people have been waiting for. He's the Christ. He's the one that all of the Old Testament promises and prophecies have been pointing to. And because that's who he is, he has this authority. Look with me at Luke 20 verse 1. One day Jesus was teaching the people in the temple and preaching the gospel. Now we talked about this last week, but I just want to remind you of what it means when it says Jesus was teaching and preaching the gospel. Look at the gospel of Mark chapter 1 verse 14 and 15. This is what it means when it says Jesus was preaching the gospel. After John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the gospel, same word of God, and here's what he was saying. When he's preaching the gospel, this is what Jesus is saying. The time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe the gospel. Three parts to the gospel. It's really simple. The time is fulfilled, meaning I'm the one. You've been waiting all these centuries for somebody to come, the offspring of the woman, the offspring of Abraham, the son of David, the suffering servant of Isaiah. You've been waiting and now the time is fulfilled. I'm the one you've been waiting for. Secondly, the kingdom of God is here, meaning I'm the king. I am your king. Repent. Turn away from your sin and believe that I am who I say I am. Believe the gospel. Believe that the time is now fulfilled. That's a very simple message. And Luke says, Luke 20 verse 1, he's standing in the temple preaching the gospel. Meaning he's standing there telling people the time is fulfilled. The kingdom of God has come. Repent and believe. And look in Luke 20 verse 1 at who approaches him. The chief priests and the scribes with the elders came up to him. Some of you may know who these guys are. Some of you may have no clue. When you read, look at the text. When you read about the chief priests, notice it's plural, it's talking about a couple of guys. It's talking about a guy named Caiaphas who was the ruling high priest and is talking about the previous high priest who was still alive at the time named Anis. There was two of them. And it was sort of like when you're president in the United States, you get to be president forever. We always call you president. Same thing with the chief priests. There was only one active at a time, but two of them were living and they were buddies and they come up to Jesus. And with them is probably the captain of the temple, somebody that they would appoint. And then Luke tells us that also with the chief priests were the scribes and the elders. Meaning the Pharisees, the seminary students, the Bible professors. This is the game. The chief priests, the captain of the temple, the scribes and the elders. These are the guys who in about two days are going to have Jesus arrested. This is the enemy. And they look Jesus in the eye and they have a question for him. Remember, he just walked into their domain, flipped their tables and their question is very simple. What right do you have? Who do you think you are? Don't you know who we are? Don't you know that we rule this place? Don't you know that God has put us in charge? Who are you to come in and disrupt what we are doing? Verse two, tell us about what authority you do these things or who is it that gave you this authority. Verse three, look at his answer. He answers with a question. I'm going to ask you a question. Was the baptism of John from heaven or from man? Was John's baptism from heaven, meaning from God or was it from man, meaning he was just a crazy guy in the desert? When you first read that and you read through the story you say Jesus is clever. Jesus is just smarter than these guys. These guys thought they had him backed into some sort of corner. Jesus pulls a little shake and bake on them and asks them a question and they don't know how to answer and he just makes them look stupid. There's a little bit of that going on here. He is smarter than them and he does back them into a corner. He actually answers the question. Look what Jesus says in this question that he answers with. Was the baptism of John from heaven or from man? The evil guys go over and they have their little huddle and in the huddle they got their heads together. You've seen the commercial on TV with the referees and a huddle and they're talking about what they're going to call and they don't know what to do and then somebody says, "Your mic's on and they look really stupid." It's kind of the same thing, right? These guys have their huddle, "What are we going to do? What are we going to do?" And one guy says, "Well look, we all know John's a nut. He's a lunatic. We do not believe that he was sent from God." And another guy across the huddle says, "Yeah, but look, we can't say that. The people look at all these people. They're in the court of the Gentiles and it's crampacked with people for the Passover. These people love John. They're fools. We think they're idiots, but they think John's the greatest." And so if we start trashing John, there's a lot of fervor. There's a lot of religious intensity right now. They might just stone us. Somebody else pipes up and says, "Yeah, we can't say anything good about John. If we say something good about John, that validates who Jesus is." Because do you remember the things that John the Baptist walked around saying about Jesus? Here's some of the things that he said about Jesus. Mark chapter 1. "Someone is coming after me who's greater than me." "I'm not even worthy," John the Baptist said, "to stoop and untie his shoes." Mark 1, 7 to 8. John 1, 23. He said, "Somebody who actually lived before me is going to come after me and he's the Christ." John 1, 23. John 1, 29 and 30. He told the Lamb of God who comes to do what? To take away the sin of the world. John 3, verse 28 to 30. He's the Christ. He just openly says, "He's the one. It's not me. I need to be less. He needs to be greater. He's the Christ." And so they're in the huddle and they say, "Look, even if we just wanted to appease the people and get Jesus to answer the question and lie, if we say that John the Baptist was from God, it's everything that he said about Jesus. We think John was a crazy man. We think Jesus is an idiot." So they turn around and their brilliant answer is, "We don't know." The leaders of the temple, the guys who were the chief priests in charge, the guys you could go to for theological training, turn around to an uneducated carpenter from Galilee and say, "We don't know. We have no answer for you." Look at the picture. They're out there in that green area somewhere. It's crammed packed with people. Jewish historians tell us that millions of pilgrims would cram into Jerusalem for the Passover, and it's just two days away. There's a lot of people living in Jerusalem. The city is swollen full with pilgrims. You know what that feels like when you live in Odessa, Texas in a boom time, and there's just people thick and they're all there listening, and the big dogs, the rulers of this area try to back Jesus into a corner. He answers their question, puts them in a corner, and makes them look foolish in front of all the people. Can you imagine how that made them feel? They were furious. Listen, they hated Jesus enough that they'd been planning for weeks and months and even years at this point to arrest him and get rid of him. And now when they're starting to make their move in front of all the pilgrims in Jerusalem, Jesus makes them look foolish. And then Jesus makes it worse because while he's got him on the defensive, he tells a story. He tells a parable. Here's what you need to see about this parable. It's a warning about judgment. It is a dire warning about divine judgment. Most parables are designed to teach you one central truth, one main idea. Some parables like this one are a little bit more like an allegory, where every detail in the story represents someone or something else. This one's a little bit allegorical, and so just look at the text. We read about a man. The man in this parable is God. We read that this man planted a vineyard. You can go back and look in the Old Testament over and over and over again. God calls Israel a vineyard, a vine. And so when these Jewish people who knew the Old Testament hear Jesus, they're once was a man who planted a vineyard. They know exactly what he's talking about. Oh, he means that God created the people, the nation of Israel. They're tracking along. We read about tenants who are put in charge of this vineyard. These are the spiritual leaders over Israel. At the moment, in the present, they're the guys looking at Jesus with blush faces. We read about servants who are sent to the vineyard. These are the prophets, men like Elijah, men like Isaiah, men like Jeremiah, men like Zechariah, over and over and over again. God sends these prophets. And then lastly, we read that the man says they're not listening to my servants. I'm going to send who, my son, Jesus talking about himself. And everybody knows what's going on. They get all the symbolism, they get all the imagery. And did you notice how this story ends? It doesn't have a PG ending. Look at verse 15 and 16. They throw the son out of the vineyard and they murder him. They kill him. What is the owner of the vineyard going to do to them? The tenants. He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others. Do you understand what Jesus is saying and who he's saying it to? The very men who came to trap him in a theological corner so that they would have a reason to arrest him. Jesus turns the tables on him, makes him look like fools in front of thousands of people. And then he looks them in the eye and he says, let me tell you a story. And the story ends like this. God is going to come and destroy you. Think about it if you're the chief priests and the scribes and the elders. You are planning to destroy Jesus. And he has the audacity in front of all these people to look at you and to say, you're no spiritual leader, you're a joke. And God is going to come and he's going to destroy you. And he's going to take what he's entrusted to you and he's going to give it to somebody else. These guys are furious. They are really, really hot. And here's the most important thing you've got to see. He tells this story, it's a story about himself, it's an autobiography. And here's the two things you need to learn about Jesus from this parable. Number one, he's more than a prophet, he is God's beloved son. He is not just a mere prophet, he is the son of God. Verse 13, they rejected the servants, the prophets. So he sins his beloved son. You can jot down over in your margin Luke chapter 3 verse 22, go back and read it. It's when Jesus was baptized in the gospel of Luke and a voice comes from heaven and guess what it says. This is my beloved son. Go back out in the margin and jot down the gospel of Luke. This time look at chapter 9 verse 35, it's when Jesus was transfigured on the mountain before the disciples. He starts to talk like a fool, the voice comes from heaven and the voice says Peter be quiet, this is my son who I love. It's the son. Jesus tells this story and he puts himself at the center and he says I'm the son. And here's the funny thing, we hear that differently than these guys heard it. As Americans for some reason we hear Jesus is the son of God and we think that means so he's like half step below God. The son is just a little bit lower than God. That's not how these Jewish people heard it at all. When they heard Jesus say that he was the son they understood that Jesus was saying I'm God. And this was their thought process. If I was to stand up and say to you I have a son, he's down in the nursery, his name is Clayton. Not one of you I hope would picture a dog. You wouldn't get a middle picture of a little fuzzy guy, run around four legs tail wagging in the back, yipping, licking people. Although my son does some of those things. You would picture a human. It's his son. It's in his image. Pastors human, his son is human. And when Jesus says I am God's son they understood well if God's going to have a son, the son is going to be God. God has a son, he must be divine and Jesus looks at these guys and in the story he says I'm the son. I'm God. The parable also reminds us that Jesus is the cornerstone. And this one's a little bit harder to understand and I thought a lot this week about how to explain this, how to approach it. But Jesus looks at these guys, look down in verse 16, he says God's going to come destroy you and they hear this and they say surely not. That's the strongest negation that can possibly be uttered in the Greek language. I'm not even going to repeat what it literally means. It means no way. It's not going to happen. God is not going to come destroy us. And Jesus responds in verse 17, I love this, he looked directly at them. Eyeball to eyeball. And he quotes from Psalm 118, the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. You can go back into Luke 19, we talked about this last week when Jesus is writing that donkey into Jerusalem. Remember we talked about people break out in the song and it wasn't like some Disney movie thing, it was a song they all knew. It was Psalm 118 that they start singing as Jesus is writing into town. Just a day or two later, Jesus is in the temple and he quotes the exact same Psalm, Psalm 118. And what he's saying is, oh yeah, you don't think God's going to destroy you? You don't think I am who I say I am? And then he quotes this verse, the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. You can look back in the Bible and try to figure out what he means. You can also look forward. And I want you to hold your spot in Luke 20 and I want you to flip over to the right to the book of Acts. Acts chapter 4, remember the book of Acts is also written by Luke, it's really Luke part 2. When Jesus is in the temple in Luke 20 and he quotes Psalm 118, one of the guys standing right next to him is a guy named Peter. And just a few months after this Jesus has died, he's gone back to heaven, Peter gets hauled before the very same people who murdered Jesus. The very same guys, they're all still alive, they're all still around, they haul Peter in and they basically say to Peter, hey we heard you healed the guy. On whose authority did you do that? Is that question sound familiar? Who are you to be healing people in the temple? Look at Acts 4 verse 5. The next day they're rulers and elders and scribes, sounds familiar, gathered together in Jerusalem and look who's there? The high priest, the former high priest, Caiaphas, the current high priest, John and Alexander and all who were the high priestly family. And when they had set them in their midst they inquired, by what power or by what name do you do this? On whose authority, Peter, verse 8, Peter filled with the Holy Spirit said to them, rulers of the people and elders, if we're being examined today concerning a good deed done to a crippled man, by what means this man has been healed, let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by him this man is standing before you. Look at verse 11. This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. Same guys involved, the leaders, the spiritual leaders, the chief priests, Anas, Caiaphas, the same question on whose authority do you do this? The exact same quotation, first from Jesus, this time from Peter, look, we make fun of Peter, we call him stupid, we say he didn't pay attention, he was listening. And the light bulb goes off and he sees the same guys in the same place asking the same question and he says, well which Old Testament verse should I use? How about the one Jesus used? This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. Some of you are saying, I still don't know what that means, here's what it means, verse 12. There is salvation and no one else for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we may be saved. That's what it means. That's what it means when Peter quotes it and acts for and that's what it means when Jesus quotes it in Luke 20. Did the chief priests and the elders and the scribes get it? Nope. But that's what Jesus is saying to him. You don't think that God's going to destroy you for what you're about to do? He's looking at them saying, I am the only way that you or anyone else can be saved. The sacrifices that you're doing 20 yards away at that temple, they don't save you, they point to me. The good deeds and the obedience you think you can earn with God and keeping his law perfectly, you can't do it. That's not the way to be saved. Coming to church and bringing food for the needy or sending boxes to kids who have nothing, that's not going to save you. There is only one name under heaven given among men by which we may be saved in its Jesus Christ. The stone that the builders rejected that God made to be the cornerstone. Luke 19, 10, that's what we're talking about. The Son of Man came to seek and save the lost. There's no other name, there's no other person that did that, there's no other way into heaven. That brings us to the Lord's Supper. And I want you to think about a couple of things this morning before we celebrate the Lord's Supper. First thing I want you to see is this, Lord's Supper is a celebration for those who look back to Jesus for salvation. And by back I mean in time, we look back in 2015, almost 2,000 years, and we remember what Jesus has done for us. Look, when you read the story in Luke 20, you get the sense that it's all very tense and chaotic and people don't exactly know what's going on. The chief priests have no clue the disciples we know are struggling to understand. But eventually these disciples struggling to put it all together looked back and they got it. It made sense to them. They looked back to Jesus for salvation. We read from Acts 4, just a minute ago, I want to read another passage from Acts 4. This one is verse 27 and 28 in Acts 4, it says this. "Truly in this city," this is the church praying together. "Truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, God anointed. Herod was gathered, Pontius Pilate was gathered along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel. Verse 28, "They were gathered together against Jesus to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place." Do you feel the weight of that? Do you feel the mystery of that? This is just months after Jesus dies on the cross. And the church, they're praying together, right after the verses we read Peter says there's no other name given under heaven among men by which we may be saved. They get together and they have this prayer meeting and they say that what happened to Jesus by the hands of these wicked men was exactly what God had predestined to happen. Were they guilty for what they did? Yes, they did it. Peter said it earlier in Acts 4, "You killed him." Later is their praying. All that happened was exactly according to God's plan. Do you understand the weight of Luke 19-10? It's not just some catchy little verse that I throw out there and it's easy to memorize. Luke 19-10 is not plan B once things went haywire with Jesus' ministry. Luke 19-10 is the plan from the foundation of the world. That's what Luke 4 is saying. That's the plan. There is no plan B. Plan A is it. It's going to happen. The Son of Man is going to come. He's going to seek and he's going to save the lost. And there is no other name under heaven given among men by which you may be saved. So we look back and we remember that. Thinking about the Lord's Supper, we also look forward to celebration for those who look forward to the return of Jesus. In the book of 1 Corinthians, we're not going to read it now, but in the book of 1 Corinthians Paul tells the church there, "Celebrate the Lord's Supper, do this until Jesus comes back." Meaning, as you do it, remember that he's promised to come back for us. The story is not over. He's going to return and we're going to do this. This act of remembrance, this act of worship, this act of celebration until he comes again. And the Bible talks about the day when he comes back. Jesus talks about it right here in Luke 20. Jesus says, "I'm the cornerstone." And there are several things that can happen with this cornerstone if you listen to Jesus. One thing that can happen is it can be the foundation stone of a building of your spiritual life. Another thing that can happen is you can stumble over it. That's what the Pharisees and the scribes and the chief priests were doing. They're standing right in front of Jesus. They hear the gospel proclaimed. The time is fulfilled. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe. I'm the one. I'm the stone. They hear it and they stumble over it. And Jesus says that ends badly for you. Another thing that can happen is at the very end, Jesus says very bluntly. Again, I told you Jesus is not a softy. He says, "In the end, if you don't repent and believe the gospel, this stone is going to crush you." You look at this figure of Jesus at this pivotal moment in his life and you realize he is at once the judge and the Savior. Both. And not one more than the other. Not more loving than judge, not more judged than loving. He's both. He is the one as the Messiah who has authority to judge all of the peoples. And he says, "I'm the stone and you can trip over it. It can crush you or it can be the foundation of your spiritual life." But he doesn't just come as the judge. He also comes as the Savior. And Luke 19-10 is moments away from becoming a reality where Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. And so this morning we take the Lord's Supper, we look back and we remember what Jesus has done for us. We also look forward and we anticipate the day that he returns. I'm going to ask you to bow. Our band is going to come up to the front. Our deacons and our elders are going to make their way to the back. And I just want you to spend a few moments in prayer reflecting on your relationship with Jesus Christ. And as you do that, I want you to know that if you're a follower of Jesus and you have obeyed his command to be baptized, we're inviting you to celebrate the Lord's Supper with us. We're not a follower of Jesus this morning. We just ask that as the plates come by, you let them pass and you spend a few minutes reflecting on what it would look like in your life for you to follow Jesus. Reflecting on the gospel is a message that the time is fulfilled, the king has come, and he demands that you repent and believe. And as we take the Lord's Supper and you spend these few moments in prayer, I want you to be mindful that this is not us coming to feel sorry for Jesus, to pity Jesus. This is not us coming to prove to Jesus how worthy we are, but it's us coming to Jesus thanking him for what he's done on our behalf. We're celebrating what he's done and acknowledging that we are not worthy, that we are sinners separated ourselves from God, and that the only way we can be brought back into a relationship with God is through Jesus Christ. There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we might be saved. We celebrate that this morning. Father, as we take of the bread and as we take of the cup, we acknowledge our unworthiness. We find hope in your grace. Father, we thank you that the Son of Man came to seek us and to save us, and his body was broken for our sins, that his blood was poured out for our transgressions, and that he offers us life. Father, be honored as we take this ordinance and we look backwards with gratitude and as we look forward with anticipation. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. [MUSIC PLAYING]