Immanuel Sermon Audio
Luke 15:1-10
If you have your Bible, you can open it to Luke chapter 15. This morning is one of those mornings when you go through a book like the Gospel of Luke that you look forward to for a long time. We're not going to look at all of Luke 15, but the first 10 verses this morning and the rest of it next week. A famous chapter in Luke, a well-known chapter in Luke, there's an outline in the bulletin if you like to follow along on the outline, you can do that. Luke 15, while you turn to Luke 15, I'll tell you a story. You got to hear from some of our people who went to Kenya a couple of weeks ago and so I'll tell you a quick little Kenya story from a couple of years when I got to go with our church group. Two years ago, Chris took three teams to Kenya and the way that worked is we had one team that went for two weeks and then we had a team that went just for the first week and came home and then we had a third team that went just for the second week and came home. I think that's how we're going to do it this upcoming year as well and we'll tell you more about that in a minute, but we had these three teams and I was on the second team just going for the second week. So there was about ten of us traveling on that second team and we made it, had to run through the London airport and barely made our connection, but we finally made the whole trip, got all the way to Kenya to the airport in Nairobi and it was late, it was about midnight, we were really, really tired and we had checked, I think our group about 30 bags, does that sound about right? We had taken about 30 and so you sort of stand there and you just start praying, are they going to come off and so we're praying and here they come, one, two, and we got up to about 24 which is a pretty good percentage, we were happy with 24 but that means we didn't have about six and so the first thing that happened, I really wish I had a picture to show you of this, maybe I could ask Chris to come, no, don't come demonstrate this because he would. Chris Ray tries to crawl through the baggage claim hole, where the little thing, the track comes out carrying the bags, he's like trying to crawl through the hole and he's yelling at the guys back there who speak not English but he's yelling at him and so I really want a picture on their side of things, this white guy leaning through the hole and they're like look at this idiot, he thinks you're supposed to crawl through the hole, they don't have baggage things in America, he doesn't know, we're going to send it out to him as soon as he's there but he's crawling through there, where's the bags, where's the bags, so he's yelling and yelling, finally they say there's no more bags, they're not coming so we go get in line and it's late and we're trying to figure out which bags we're missing and to save a little bit of time I say to the group look, one of yours is missing and one of yours and one of yours, I'm just going to claim all the lost bags and that way we don't have to stand in line five times, we just stand in line once, we claim all the bags and they'll send them to us so we stand in line, we go through the process great, they say we'll send them to you as soon as we can get them, we pile in the vans, we leave the airport, we go to the hostel which was not exactly the Ritz Carlton but it was a place you could sleep sort of and so we get in there and we come up to the front counter and it's time to check in and the first thing they ask you when you check in is we need to see your passport and as soon as the lady said to me I need to see your passport I just thought I was going to throw up because I knew immediately I don't have my passport, it's with the baggage claim guy at the Nairobi airport, 30 minutes away, it's about one in the morning now and so immediately my mind starts racing, I'm thinking okay we're supposed to sleep here for about three hours and then go back to the airport and go on this next flight but I can't get on that next flight if I don't have my passport and the guys got it there at the airport, I can't check into the hotel until I have my passport and I'm thinking okay so I got to go get it, so I go to our driver and I say to him he's tired by the way I say I got to drive back to the airport to get my passport and he looks at me like I'm from a foreign country or something and says what I say I know exactly where it's at, I left it at the counter right there with the guy, I got to go back and get it and he says we're going back in three hours, let's just wait and go get it then and I look at him like he's crazy and I say no no get the keys we're going now and so we sort of go back and forth and finally he goes and he gets the keys, we drive back 30 minutes and this is something in the drive back I never thought about, drive back to the airport, he just drops me off at the front door, I have no ID and I speak English and I have to convince the guy with the machine gun to let me in the airport with no ID in whatever language he's speaking and I'm speaking and finally after about 30 minutes I convince him I'm safe, I'm not going to do anything crazy but my passport's in there so I get in and I run through the airport, I go back to the baggage claim counter and there's my guy, he just checked my bags or claimed all my bags and he's holding it right here and he says here you go, I've got it and I put it in my hand and I just the rest of the trip is going to be okay. Now some of you have never lost your passport in a third world country, that's a good thing, I don't encourage you to try to do that but you've all lost something important, you all know the feeling in your belly when you lose something important and you can't find it, maybe it's your keys right, you're used to being able to feel your keys right here and you say my keys, your wallet, your purse and you just all of a sudden you realize I don't have it with me, it's gone, where was it, where was the last time I saw it, where did I leave it and your mind starts racing, you know that feeling, for some of you the most important thing you lose on a regular basis is the TV remote and that's pretty important because you just, life cannot go on in the house until you find the remote, where could it be, is it under the couch, is it in this room, where is it and you're looking and you're looking and you're looking and all you can think about is where could it be, I gotta find it, I gotta find it, some of you know that feeling, not because of your keys or your wallet or your purse or the TV remote, some of you have lost a kid before, maybe you've been in HEB and you're going up and down the aisles and you start to think, man it's quiet in here and then all of a sudden that feeling of, oh this is nice, goes to I'm in big trouble, you start, you're laughing nervously, but some of you have done that, you've lost your kid in HEB and you know that feeling thinking where they at, they're probably on the toy aisle or the ice cream aisle or the coke aisle or something, you go try to find where they at, until you find them nothing else matters, that's all you care about, you know the feeling when you've lost something important and all you want to do is find it. In the passage that we're going to look at this morning and next week, it's all about things that are lost, there's a lost sheep, then there's a lost coin and then next week we're going to talk about there are two, not one, two lost sons but we're going to talk about the sons next week, this morning we're talking about a lost sheep and a lost coin and when you read these stories, look at Luke 15-3, it's kind of interesting, Luke 15-3 says Jesus, that's the HE, he told them this parable, this parable, singular, he told them a parable but when you read starting in verse 3 to the end of the chapter, you actually find three parables, say would Luke just maybe made a grammatical mistake, Luke just wasn't clear on the uses of your plural and singular, no no no, Luke's making a very important point, Jesus is about to teach three parables but really it's one parable because they all fall in line and they all have the exact same big idea, something is lost and it needs to be found, something is lost and someone needs to go seek it and find it, does that remind you of anything else in the gospel of Luke that we've talked about, maybe Luke 19-10, the son of man came to seek and to save what was lost and in these stories Jesus is painting a very vivid picture of the importance of what it means to find something that's lost and so the big idea is very simple, the son of man came to seek and to save the lost, Luke 19-10, the theme for the entire study of Luke that we're going through is also the big idea of this passage, now let's set the sage, the stage before we read the first 10 verses here, you remember Luke 951, it's a turning point in Luke and in Luke 951 we read that Jesus sets his face to go to Jerusalem, right, he's been teaching, he's been preaching, he's been healing, he's been traveling around but at this point in his life, Luke 951 he says everything else now is headed towards the cross, this is my last journey to Jerusalem and when I get there he knows exactly what's going to happen, I'm going to die, that's the fulfillment, the big, big sort of symbol crash at the end of the excitement, this is where the son of man is going to seek and save the lost in Jerusalem and Luke 951, he's headed that way, now look in your Bible at just a couple of verses, look at Luke 14-1, it says that Jesus is having dinner at the home of one of the Pharisees, so we know that he's traveling to Jerusalem, he's got his disciples with him but he's also on the way stopping and he's making time to eat with the Pharisees, look at Luke 14-25, Luke says that great crowds were following Jesus, so you see all the people he's interacting with here, he's interacting with the disciples, they're going to Jerusalem with him, he's stopping and he's talking and he's eating with the Pharisees, there's these great crowds of people, not the inner circle of disciples but just people who are curious, people who are interested, they're following him around and then look at Luke 15-1, add to all of that Luke says that he's hanging out with the tax collectors and the sinners who were drawing near to hear him, that's a lot of different people from a lot of different backgrounds trying to get access to Jesus, in his mind he knows he's marching to Jerusalem to die for sinners and on the way he's got the disciples that he's concerned about, he's got the Pharisees that he's taking time to eat with them and to talk with them, he's got these crowds of people, masses of people pressing in around him and then he's hanging out also with the tax collectors and the sinners, with the people that the religious leaders saw as the scum of the earth and this is our passage, Luke 15, look with me at verse 1, the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him and the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled saying this man receives sinners and eats with them, so he that's Jesus told them a parable, what man of you having a hundred sheep if he has lost one of them does not leave the 99 in the open country and go after the one that is lost until he finds it and when he is found it he lays it on his shoulders rejoicing and when he comes home he calls together his friends and his neighbors saying to them rejoice with me for I have found my sheep that was lost just so I tell you there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who need no repentance or what woman having ten silver coins if she loses one coin does not light a lamp sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it and when she is found it she calls together her friends and neighbors saying rejoice with me for I have found the coin that I had lost just so I tell you there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents this is the word of God let's pray Father we acknowledge this morning that left to ourselves we are lost and we are amazed at the grace that you've shown us in sending Jesus to seek us and to save us and to find us and to bring us home and Father above all of that we're amazed that he does it joyfully willingly gladly not begrudgingly and as we look at these very simple but very profound stories we pray that you would give us eyes to see the truth and hearts to receive it Father we pray for those who are here who have never been found maybe they've never heard the good news about Jesus maybe they've never responded as your word tells us to respond but we pray that today would be the day of salvation for them we ask it all in Jesus name amen so it's a tricky passage to preach when you look at Luke 15 it's tricky for one thing because Jesus is telling remember one parable not three parables that you can just sort of separate but one parable which means to understand the first two you also have to understand the third the parable of the lost sons and to understand the parable of the lost sons you have to look at the first two but time means we have to divide it up somewhere and so we'll look at these two the sheep and the coin this morning and the sons next week it's also tricky because Jesus is a master storyteller and this is one of those passages in scripture look there's some places in the Bible where the point is kind of hard to get you have to really think about it you have to do some digging and things like that this is one of those places where it's pretty clear what Jesus is trying to say and even non-Christian scholars will look at this passage Luke 15 at these three short stories that all go together and make one story they look at this and they say Jesus is a great teacher he's a great communicator he's a fantastic storyteller and so on the on the on the flip side of that is the preacher you look at that and you say how am I going to improve upon it if Jesus wanted to improve upon it or to make it more clear he could have done so and this is a passage that sort of makes you scratch your head as you think about teaching it it's also makes you scratch your head because Jesus doesn't usually talk in nice neat three-point sermon outlines and sometimes preachers get so connected to a certain method of preaching or points and alliterations and blanks and filling all the stuff out that sometimes what preachers end up doing is they take the text that's pretty clear and they sort of twist it and mold it into what they want to say which is the exact opposite of what the preacher ought to do the preacher should never mold the text to fit his message the preacher should always allow the text to mold his message and so this morning I wish I could just give you sort of three bullet points easy alliteration outline but I'm just going to give you some observations and some reflections about these stories the first one is this we should be very careful about putting people into moral categories notice I did not say you should never put people into moral categories that would be the opposite extreme of the people today who like to quote Matthew seven and say don't judge others or you two will be judged who are you to to expose any kind of sin in anyone's life not the point in Matthew seven not the point in Matthew in Luke 15 but when you read this story and you read the first two verses about the Pharisees and the scribes and the tax collectors and the sinners you come away saying you know what I need to be careful about putting people into moral categories the Pharisees were really good at that they had everybody sort of pegged and ranked so you got the the tax collectors then you got the sinners then you just sort of got the average people and then you got the scribes and the Pharisees and they had this whole sort of sliding scale of people and in their mind on this sliding scale you sort of go from the worst to the best and somewhere in the middle and the reality is we do the exact same thing all the time you say no I would never do something of course you do stuff like that all the time you look at people and say well do they go to church or not or do they do they do this or not or what sort of language they use or not use and we come up in our minds with these same sort of little silly sliding scales of good to bad and we try to peg people on there and usually we overestimate how good we ought to be and usually we're pretty hard on other people about where they ought to be we're a lot like the Pharisees you understand when you look at this story and Jesus comes busting into this crazy worldview of thinking of people on this sliding scale Jesus really doesn't think of people in terms of good or bad when you read Luke 15 you realize he thinks of people in terms of lost and found totally different way of thinking about people Jesus is not so much concerned about where you fall on the sliding scale of morality Jesus just sort of looks at everybody Pharisees scribes tax collector centers prostitutes all of them and says you're all lost that's why I'm here in the first place I came to seek and to save the lost and as Jesus teaches these guys and he tells these stories to these guys he's just kind of exploding their categories of morality and these rankings that they operate within life and Jesus is saying look forget this idea of good to bad and where do you fall you're all lost and that's the emphasis that Jesus puts on things here's a second observation Jesus calls all people without exception to repent of their sin this is something that gets left out of the modern day hippie like love everybody let's just all get along sing kumbaya Jesus is that yeah Jesus spent time hanging out with tax collectors and sinners he also spent time hanging out with self righteous prideful arrogant Pharisees and he spent time with his buddies his close friends and he spent time with the crowds but he always called people to repentance you can go back and look at Luke 14 Jesus is talking to the Pharisees in the home of one of the Pharisees and as rude as it was Jesus exposed their sin and called them to repentance the Pharisees you need to repent and then he's talking to the crowds Luke 14 25 these great crowds are gathering and Jesus goes right into one of the hardest sermons or talks or speeches whatever you want to call it about discipleship and they need to repent and they need to die to yourself daily he doesn't sugarcoat it just because there's a big crowd there and he wants to get results he tells them you need to repent and yes in Luke 15 one he's hanging out with tax collectors and sinners and people with bad reputations but make make no mistake about it is Jesus tells these stories there's an emphasis on repentance the story of the sheep ends with somebody who repents the story of the coin ends with application about someone who repents the story of the two lost sons ends with one who repents and one you're not sure if he's going to repent or not but the point in all these stories at the end is repentance repentance repentance you say well wait a minute I'm confused look at verse seven in chapter 15 Jesus talks about 99 righteous persons who don't need to repent so which one is it does he call all people without exception to repent or does he think that there's some category of person that doesn't need to repent Jesus could use irony and sarcasm and he had a sense of humor and I don't think there's any question that is Jesus talks in verse seven about sinners who repent in 99 righteous who don't need to repent I don't think there's any question that he's doing it with a wink in his eye and he's looking at these Pharisees who are so been out of shape because Jesus is spending time with the tax collectors and sinners and he's saying to them look you think you're in this category if you don't need to repent you're a fool and he comes around and he makes that point crystal clear in the next parable the parable of the lost sons because in that parable there's two sons who are lost not to get ahead of ourselves which you understand one son is lost and that he runs away from home and rejects the father's care he's lost there's another son that stays home and he tries really hard to keep all the rules and to be a good person and when you get to the end of the story which one of those sons is in at the party it's the first one and the second one who thought he stayed close to home he thought he was such a good person he thought he was pretty high on the sliding scale of morality especially compared to his loser brother you realize he's totally lost he never loved the father he never wanted to be with the father he just wanted the father stuff and he took a different approach to getting it one son said give it to me now the other said i'm going to work really hard and i'm going to get all of it in the end neither of them cared about the father Jesus is saying to the Pharisees you guys think that you're in this category of people who don't need to repent baloney all of you are lost and he calls all of us to repentance that's true today regardless of where you're at in life i don't care how old you are how young you are i don't care if you grew up going to church or you didn't grow up going to church i don't care if you're a preacher or you're not a preacher Jesus is saying to you what i need in your life is repentance i need you to put away anything that keeps you from following me i need you to to turn away from anything that you love more than me i need you to take anything in your life that you've set up as a little g god an idol and i need you to get rid of it and i need you to put it in its proper place so that you can love me and you can follow me he's calling people to repentance let's talk about the two parables very briefly just to make sure we're on the same page first of all there's a parable about a shepherd and a lost sheep in the story Jesus says that the man has a hundred sheep in his flock now i'll be honest with you i know nothing about sheep or flocks but from what i've read in ancient days in Jesus's time a hundred sheep was a really big flock for one shepherd to take care of 20 30 maybe 40 if you were a really seasoned shepherd but a hundred is just too many to keep track of so most scholars look at this story and they say it's probably a wealthy landowner and he has hired some shepherds to take care of this large flock two three maybe four of them and they're responsible for each and every sheep in the flock they've got to give an account for each and every sheep in the flock if it dies and gets torn apart by an animal they've got to take the skin of that sheep and bring it back as proof that they didn't just lose it by their own negligence and so when Jesus says he leaves the 99 you understand he really doesn't just leave the 99 to fend for themselves and wander around aimlessly he leaves the 99 with his buddies and he goes to find the one that's lost and the buddies stay behind and they're taking care of the 99 and they're watching maybe they're scanning the horizon we know the father in the third parable did this they're looking for their shepherd friend to come back and when they seem he's found the sheep he's carrying the sheep and it's a very important detail what does Jesus say when he gets back into the camp and he's got the one back with the 99 so they have a hundred again does he come in complaining about sheep does he come in griping this is the dumbest sheep ever we need to trade with the guy in that flock we want to get rid of this dumb sheep we want to get does he come back saying I'm exhausted that was so tiring Jesus says he comes back and he's doing what he's rejoicing we found him I did what I went to do he was lost and I found him and we should celebrate that's the story of the lost sheep then there's the story about a woman and she's lost a coin she's lost a silver coin probably this is a silver drop mine it's about the equivalent of a day's wage for people in Jesus' time you say well that's not a whole lot of money I don't know that that's worth turning a whole house upside down and act them like a crazy person but when you live on the edge of starvation and you don't have a savings account and you sort of exist day to day that's a lot of money and this woman loses it something of great value she has ten and she loses one ten percent of her wealth is gone some scholars say it's not just an issue of wealth here but there's maybe an issue of sentimental value and they point to this tradition of of Jewish women when they would get married in Jesus' day they would take ten silver coins they would string them on a chain and they would wear it sometimes around their neck sometimes a sort of almost a headdress and it was their equivalent of sort of like a wedding ring they didn't exchange rings but the women would wear these ten coins and it was a sign I'm a married woman and maybe what Jesus is saying in this story is not just as she lost something valuable but she's lost something with sentimental value something very important to her heart and so she does what any of us would do you lose your passport in Kenya you lose your kid at HEB you lose one tenth of your wealth and your wedding ring you go looking for it and she's sweeping the house she's sweeping to listen for the cling of metal and she she lights a lamp to see in the dirt floor is it is it shining is there a sparkle down there somewhere and she turns the house upside down and finally she finds it and what does she do does she complain about oh I keep losing this coin or this stupid coin she rejoices she's elated I found it she calls all her friends and she says now we ought to celebrate you know when I look at these stories that Jesus is teaching us about things that are lost and they're found I don't think the best way to look at it is to say well God is like the woman or God is like the shepherd I think the best way to look at it is to say Jesus is doing something he does all the time through the gospels he's arguing from the lesser to the greater it's a common form of Semitic argument Jesus used it all the time and basically Jesus is saying if something is small on this little level certainly it's true on this big level for example when he teaches about prayer he says look if an idiot foolish wicked sinful judge will eventually listen to your request how much more your father in heaven is going to listen to you when you pray and he's saying here look if a shepherd cares so much about one sheep one out of a hundred that he'll go find it how much more valuable are God's people who are lost and if a woman will turn the house upside down and go to crazy ends and she won't stop until she gets the one coin back how much more true of that is the God who made you and sent his son to seek you and to save you and so I look at these parables I think they're teaching the same lessons and I'm going to give them to you quickly parable of the lost sheep parable of the lost coin teaching the same lessons number one God is concerned about those who are lost he's concerned about those who are lost this is not just a New Testament truth this has always been true of God from Genesis all the way to Revelation when Adam is lost hiding in the garden what does God do he seeks him out when his people are lost and enslaved in Egypt what does he do he sends somebody to get him when his people need a king you read in judges we need a king we need a king we need a king what does he do he sends him a king you can jot down out in the margin Ezekiel 34 11 it's an Old Testament promise where God said to Israel he's getting ready to bring them back from exile and he says to him Ezekiel 34 11 I'm going to come seek you you're like lost sheep and I'm going to come find you every last one of you he's concerned about those who are lost number two God is a missionary God this is one truth about God that sets biblical Christianity apart from almost every other religion on the planet you understand there's a lot of faiths on the earth that say look if you'll get your act together if you'll clean this up if you'll do this God's just sort of waiting for you with his arms folded and a scowl on his face and he's going to give you a stern talking to but you might be able to sneak back into his good graces you realize that's the opposite of what the bible teaches bible says that you have fallen out of favor with God in a dramatic way that you are never going to get your way back into his good graces but God is a missionary God he comes to find you he sends the sun to seek you out and to save you while you're lost he's a missionary God Romans 5 8 says the exact same thing while we were sinners Jesus died for us he didn't wait for us to clean our act up and then die for us he died for us while we were sinners still sinners 1 John 4 10 John says this is love not that we loved God first but that he loved us this whole thing didn't start with us coming back to God it started with God coming to seek us third lesson is this salvation should result in celebration it does in heaven Jesus says there's great joy in heaven when a sinner repents salvation is something to celebrate Hebrews 12 2 says the exact same thing Hebrews 12 2 talks about Jesus the founder and the perfecter of our faith scorning the cross despising at shame not begrudgingly not just because he had to not because the father made him but Hebrews 12 2 says that for the joy that was set before him he endured the cross he didn't go to the cross saying you're just a bunch of idiots I can't believe I'm having to do this for you this is so you're an ungrateful bunch of for the joy that was set before him he endured the cross and he scorned its shame lastly you'd be you'd be off base if you didn't throw this in the things that are true about God should be true of his people God's concerned about the lost we should be concerned about the lost whether they live across university or across the world God's a missionary God we should be missionary people and heaven salvation is celebrated on earth it should be celebrated one of the things that's striking when you look at this passage and I mean all of Luke 15 one story but three smaller stories every story ends with a party I don't know what kind of vision you have of God in your head if he's some sort of grouchy cranky old man living up in the clouds the picture the bible paints is of a guy who likes to go to parties he likes to have a party when the shepherd finds the sheep what does he do let's have a party the woman finds the coin and what does she say hey come over let's have a party the father whose son comes home he's still got one a strange who lives under the same roof but the one son comes home what does he do he says let's throw a party invite everybody dancing music food everybody come on we're going to have a party there's a party there's a party there's joy there's joy there's joy something that's lost has been found salvation has been experienced and the response is to celebrate what a strange thing that when we the church come together to quote unquote celebrate the Lord's Supper we often act like we're at a funeral I didn't read about any funerals in Luke 15 just a bunch of parties one after the other I'm not saying we're going to drop streamers and throw balloons and have loud music and we're going to have a big dance yes you want to be reverent yes you want to be respectful but listen Jesus isn't saying in the Lord's Supper I want you to come together and I want you to be so sorrowful and so sad and try to act like you're very very serious and I want you to really feel bad about this and you I want you it's not like Jesus is saying I want you to do this so you remember what I had to do for you he's saying I just want you to remember what I did no one twisted my arm into doing it I came to seeking to save the lost and I did it for the joy that was set before me this is something to celebrate the Lord's Supper is not a funeral where we remember a dead man the Lord's Supper is we remember a man who died and came to life three days later when we come to the Lord's table which we're going to do in just a minute a lot of people have this idea of okay I need to come and I need to start confessing every sin I've I've committed since we took the Lord's Supper the last time I just need to I've got an itemized list maybe you have it on your phone if you're a type A person you just break it out you sir we don't have time for that so we're not going to do that this morning Jesus doesn't ask you to do that that's not the point the point is for you to come before the Lord and to say left to myself I'm lost I don't even register on the sliding scale of good and bad I'm not I'm nowhere to be found I'm just totally lost apart from your grace and I'm very thankful that Jesus Christ the Son of Man came to seek me and to save me and that he did that by dying on the cross taking my punishment taking my death taking my sins and I believe that he did that for me and I rest in that I'm not coming with good things that I've done to offer to you I'm resting than what Jesus has done for me we take the Lord's Supper and you're saying I'm repenting of sin I'm turning away from sin and maybe some of you would say I don't want a repent of sin and I would say the Lord's Supper is not for you Jesus talks a lot about repentance even in the midst of celebration he talks about repentance yes we celebrate salvation but that's because we're turning from sin turning to Jesus turning from something of small value or no value to the pearl of great price and so this morning when we take the Lord's Supper understand this is not something for those of you who are worthy to take it you're not neither am I neither are the guys who pass it out this celebration is for people who acknowledge that without God's grace they're lost who believe and who trust in what Jesus has done for them and who are willing to say I will repent of the cinema life so that I can follow Jesus we invite you this morning to celebrate with us if you're a follower of Jesus you've obeyed his command to be baptized we'd love for you to participate with us this morning if you sit here this morning and you say you know I'm not sure where I stand with Jesus I'm not sure where I'm at on the whole repentance thing then I would just say let the elements pass by no one's gonna look no one's gonna make fun of you nobody's gonna be ugly about it but maybe you need to spend the time thinking about your relationship with Jesus Christ whether it's genuine or whether it's not but those of you who are following Jesus those of you who are trusting him we invite you to celebrate with us this morning I want you to bow and worship team is going to come to the front our elders and our deacons are going to make their way to the back we're going to pray together father as we come to the table this morning we come with empty hands and the only thing that we have to offer you is our sin our only hope is your grace what an amazing thing to celebrate that Jesus Christ came to seek us and to save us what an invitation that you extend to us that we can come to the table that we can be part of the celebration if rather this morning we certainly confess our sin we acknowledge it before you but our focus is on Jesus Christ who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross and scorned at shame and then sat down at the right hand of the father that he accomplished our salvation he found what he came to seek and as we take of the bread and as we take of the cup we remember his body that was broken for us we remember his blood that was shed for us and father as we take these elements we're confessing together as your people that all of our hope our only hope is in Jesus Christ Lord be honored as we celebrate together as we remember and as we give thanks we pray in Jesus name